Socialist-Era New Yugoslav Feminism between “Mainstreaming” and “Disengagement”: The Possibilities for Resistance, Critical Opposition and Dissent1

Zsófia Lóránd

Lichtenberg-Kolleg, Georg-August-Universität, Göttingen

 

Through a focus on early publications by feminist intellectuals in Yugoslavia during the 1970s, this paper aims to demonstrate methods of feminist critique of the theory and practice of women’s emancipation in the context of a state socialist (in this case self-managing socialist) country in East Central Europe. After a brief overview of feminist organizing in Yugoslavia until the late 1980s, this paper looks at conferences and journal publications, which also provides the opportunity to better understand the workings of the Yugoslav public space and publishing processes. The text, written with a conceptual and intellectual historical focus, analyzes the discursive interventions and reformulations of matters related to women’s emancipation. The new Yugoslav feminist approaches rethought and reformulated the “women’s question.” Reading the prevailing currents of feminism in North America and Western Europe, feminists in Yugoslavia searched for ways to reframe this question into a critique that was constructive as well as innovative in its own context.

Keywords: Feminism, dissent, socialism, women’s question, Marxism, sisterhood.

 

“Criticism of the family and marriage […] is already the criticism of the state itself,” wrote Rada Iveković in 1981.2 This sentence reveals the essential role of feminism in post-Second World War East Europea[n socialist states, which, however, was an underrepresented discourse amid the variety of dissent, dissidence and countercultural criticism. The close reading of the work of feminists during the 1970s and 1980s in Yugoslavia, where feminism reappeared in a semi-organized form and with a wide range of activities—from intellectual discussion through artwork to explicit political activism—tells us a lot about the potential critiques of state-socialist women’s emancipation in general and thus it is relevant for the region of state-socialist Eastern Europe, while it also allows us to understand the specificities of self-managing Yugoslavia. In this paper, I focus on the early, mostly academic, publications by feminists in Yugoslavia in order to show some of the possibilities and actual meanings of feminist opposition in the context of a socialist state. I argue that their activity is somewhere in between the two ends of the scale that Linda Briskin calls “mainstreaming” and “disengagement,” between trying to negotiate their agenda into the official policies and self-organizing critical, external discourses and actions.3

My approach comes from intellectual and conceptual history. While conceptual history focuses on the meanings of the texts through a contextual reading, for feminist historiography, there is always an explicit political stake in recovering events of the past. In my reading, the two support each other in the sense that it is in the interest of feminist historiography to have meanings of concepts central to certain recovered ideologies, while the contextualism of intellectual history implicitly and often even explicitly subscribes to the importance of the personal within the political. The strategies behind feminist movements always necessarily involve an intervention with language and a struggle for meanings, the reconstruction of which is the primary aim of conceptual and intellectual history—which at the very same time respects the importance of the role of the personal and the individual as well.

The interpretative techniques I employ here focus on written sources, published (articles in newspapers, magazines, journals, as well as books) and unpublished (primarily archival documentation of activist work), artworks and videos, and also oral history interviews with the participants of the feminist groups. I base my analysis on the work and discourse of the members of feminist groups called Žena i društvo [Woman and Society] and their allies. I call the phenomenon in focus new Yugoslav feminism. Some publications and some members of the Žena i društvo use the term “neofeminizam,” that is “new feminism”—a name that not all participants, however, acknowledged. “New feminism” is also a general name widely used to describe that version of feminism, which in its diversity emerges in the 1960s in Western Europe and North America. This is what is mostly known today as the “second wave,” another problematic term I will try to avoid using, because it blends an at least 100-year-long complex history of feminist movements and discourses into one “wave.”4 However, for the Yugoslav feminists of the 1970s, the designation “new” refers to the pre-Second World War feminist history of the country, and this conscious admittance of continuity is important to highlight. The women and few men active in and around the Žena i društvo groups in Belgrade, Ljubljana and Zagreb were not a fixed and coherent group throughout the almost 20 years in focus in this paper. The individual stakes and life trajectories, the different intellectual approaches, the inherent differences within the local scenes intellectually and in the actual infrastructures make this a loose network, connected, however, by the shared fascination of a feminist critique of socialism in Yugoslavia.

The Return of Feminism

The story begins in the early 1970s: at this time, what we find in the open is journal publications and what we find backstage is a handful of young women and a few university professors. As we can see from the interviews and from their biographies, these women came from a rather homogeneous social background and, with two exceptions, were from the same generation. This generation was born after the Second World War to mothers who had a first-hand war experience and were themselves very often active participants of the partisan movement. Unlike their mothers, they were puzzled by the contradiction between the promise of the regime and their own experience of their own emancipation. They were also critical of the idea that their mothers had equality with men: the way they saw it, these women were far from having equal rights and status.5 Academia seemed to be a relatively safe space for the first tentative publications about “what is happening to American women.”6 The interest, of course, was not only in women in the United States: Europe and the “Third World” were on the radar too, especially Italy, England, France, Germany and India.

The new feminists in Yugoslavia could explore the possibilities of a feminist critique of state socialism in the space between the official and the unofficial.7 They started with meetings in each other’s homes, which later moved to the student centers and research institutes until they formed their own semi-institutions with the foundation of the SOS helplines and the shelters. There is a difference between the activities in the three major cities in which the Žena i društvo groups were organized. University seminars or talks took place mostly in Ljubljana and Zagreb, where the groups called Žena i društvo were part of post-secondary sociology departments. In Ljubljana, the ŠKUC, i.e., the Študentski kulturno-umetniški center [Students’ Cultural and Art Center], was an equally important venue at which the feminists shared the space with other countercultural and political groups, such the punk and green movements. The most important feature of the Ljubljana group was that lesbian women and straight or still closeted lesbian women worked together in the same group from the beginning. In the mid-1980s, the lesbian members played an increasingly defining role in Belgrade too. In Belgrade, the most important stronghold of new feminism was the SKC, the Students’ Cultural Center, where the director of the Gallery of the SKC, later the director of the whole institution, was Dunja Blažević. Under the auspices of the SKC, the first international feminist conference in Yugoslavia took place in 1978. Many women joined the feminist circles after attending this conference called Drug-ca žena: Novi pristup [Comrade-ess Woman: a New Approach].

This famous and canonical conference, however, was preceded by many publications (already in 1972)8 and a lot of brainstorming, even feminist presentations at the conferences organized by the state women’s organization, the Konferencija za društvenu aktivnost žena [Conference for the Social Participation of Women], that is, KDAŽ, first in 1976 in Portorož.9 In Belgrade, the SKC offered a series of discussions, the tribine. The conferences (the 1978 international one in Belgrade, and then the Yugoslav feminist conferences in 1987, 1988, 1989 and 1990) and the summer schools at the Inter-University Centre Dubrovnik beginning in 1987 were attracting the largest audiences and opened up to women who would otherwise not have attended the feminist meetings. After 1985, the small group meetings returned: these were a space in which personal experiences were emphasized (very similar to the consciousness-raising groups elsewhere) and the training groups for the SOS helplines for abused women and victims of domestic violence required the closed format. At the same time, because of the SOS helpline and the activities around it, the feminists reached a much wider audience, which could have even served as a basis for a wider grassroots movement had the war not broken out. The women and few men in the three cities cooperated very closely in the creation of these helplines, sharing knowledge and experience.

During the early phase that is the focus of this paper, journal publications were of crucial importance. Because of the influence of some professors and the openness of some women officials in the KDAŽ, some of the young women and men could participate in the conferences and editorial work of the journal Žena [Woman]. As we shall see and as research shows, some of the women indeed were dedicated to the betterment of women’s position in society, to such an extent that they were willing to give space to the feminist ideas of young women—ideas with which they themselves did not agree. This makes Žena an interesting case study of inter-generational and inter-ideological encounters.

Meanwhile, the array of journals accepting feminist articles was extended relatively quickly. From 1975 on, it included social science and humanities journals such as Pitanja [Questions], Naše teme [Our topics], Argumenti [Arguments], Ideje [Ideas], Socijalizam u svetu [Socialism in the World], Republika [Republic], etc., and in the 1980s Problemi [Problems] in Slovenia. The student journals Mladina in Ljubljana and Student and Vidici [Views] in Belgrade also provided important forums for new feminist discussions, which is not by accident: the youth organizations enjoyed relative freedom from state control in their activities.10 With time, the feminist articles reached a wider audience through newspapers and weeklies, such as Danas [Today] and Start, as well as women’s magazines, such as Bazar published in Belgrade, Svijet [World] in Zagreb and Jana in Ljubljana.11 Naša žena [Our women], another print medium in Ljubljana, was a magazine situated on the spectrum between the more serious Žena, which still followed the party lines regarding the women’s question, and the popular women’s magazines (some of which, such as Bazar and Svijet, occasionally did publish feminist articles). The full picture of the feminist discussions, however, includes art, literature, as well as literary and art theory, besides the academic discussions and the activist work. Because of the curators at the SKC, art and literature were extensively present in the feminist programs, including the flourishing artists from Zagreb such as Sanja Iveković. Possibilities for feminist writing were presented and discussed through the work of Irena Vrkjlan, Dubravka Ugrešić and Biljana Jovanović, among others.

The history of the new Yugoslav feminism has its own periodization, while it was running parallel with the new or second wave feminisms in the “West” after the beginnings in the early 1970s, which was characterised by private (kitchen table) conversations and academic publishing, there was a turn around the years 1985–86, called a “second wave” by many, when group members wanted a change in the work of the groups that would serve to focus more on activism and consciousness-raising in small, women-only groups. The next phase in their story started around 1990, when more and more new and much more diverse groups were born out of the Žena i društvo circles and went in different directions. These directions ranged from political and anti-war activism through a more spelled-out LGBTQ activism to anti-violence activism and institutionalization of feminist knowledge through the creation of women’s studies or gender studies centers and departments at universities or parallel to them.12

The type of critique the feminists in Yugoslavia articulated towards the system is hard to compare to any other form of opposition in the region at the time. While there is a temptation to attribute the phenomenon to the exceptionality of Yugoslav self-managing socialism,13 the situation is more complex than that. Due to the organization of the state, the KDAŽ, the student centers as well as the journals and magazines (those in various constellations) were working under the umbrella of the SSRNJ [Socijalistički savez radnog naroda Jugoslavije – Socialist Alliance of Working People of Yugoslavia].14 This, as I explain later in this paper was, however, far from a complete freedom of the press, but there were just enough cracks in the wall that a wide selection ideas, including feminist ones, could reach the public. In addition to the legal and infrastructural circumstances, there is a crucial source of historical inspiration that is also part of the explanation: the large numbers of women involved in the partisan movement,15 their active participation in the National Liberation Struggle and the basis this gave to the extensive emancipation of women after the Second World War, which indeed did entail substantial societal change.16 (Although it is beyond the scope of this paper, there is important current research on the state violence exerted against women in Yugoslavia in addition to the literature on women’s emancipation.)17 Besides these two factors, I would emphasize the importance of contingency: that these women in the Žena i društvo groups met, decided to like each other, decided to focus on feminism, decided to organize the women-only discussion forums and made smaller- and larger-scale decisions that subsequently defined their path. It was the path to feminism, instead of liberalism, deconstruction, Marxist revisionism, nationalism, to mention a few schools that did flourish at the time in the other socialist countries in the region despite the prevailing censorship, despite the lack of a partisan tradition and despite the closed borders.18

Dissent, Resistance, Mainstreaming and Disengagement

The new Yugoslav feminists held a position vis-à-vis the state that was between opposition and inner critique. The entire post-socialist master narrative deserves a more refined approach in order that they not “implicitly and explicitly reproduce binary categories of the Cold War and the opposition between ‘first world’ and ‘second world’,” thus ignoring the ethical and aesthetic complexities of socialist life.19 For various reasons, new Yugoslav feminism is a case par excellence of the productive encounter of discourses. Engaging in a dialogue with the state, building on its promise of gender equality, the new Yugoslav feminists do not directly oppose the Yugoslav state, but see the place of women there as constant opposition. The disappointment of this new generation of young women is similar to the experience of the feminists in the United States and Western Europe and this aspect should be constantly kept in mind when we discuss the difference between the so-called East and the so-called West. Despite the differences in the economic and political systems, the new feminist movement and ideology was born out of a disappointment with the promises of left politics, that is, with the socialist regime in Yugoslavia and the new left, the civil rights movements and the anti-war movements in Western Europe and North America.20

The new Yugoslav feminists learned about the situation of women in the West and the criticism of existing democracies through the inner, feminist dissidence,21 thus they were inspired and critical of Western capitalist democracies at the same time, unlike, for example, the liberal dissident groups in Central Europe. The new Yugoslav feminism, as we shall see, voiced strict criticism through pointing out the systemic nature of the oppression of women, thematizing women’s sexuality and, most importantly, being the first to thematize the violence that women endure without the intervention of the system. Their claim is that the state did not change the status quo, one of their conclusions being that once the regime was built on patriarchy it became ideologically impossible for women to achieve real equality.

I call the new feminist discourse in Yugoslavia a critical one, more similar in its attempt to engage the state in a dialogue than refusing it per se as most dissidence does. In the meantime, it makes sense to look at this new feminism in light of dissenting discourses because of the dissenting status of feminism elsewhere and because of the windows the dissidents themselves offer for this.22 The new feminists in Yugoslavia did not publish in samizdat nor were they imprisoned for their writings. However, they were in search of critical or oppositional positions within the state’s mainstream. They created a micro space in which nonconformist ideas could be discussed and critical thoughts disseminated outside the official classroom space and in which new research was done despite the resistance of the institutions.

Sharon Zukin, looking at “possibilities of dissent” in Yugoslavia, argues that “[i]n states that claim to operate on the basis of a Marxist ideology, there is an enormous vulnerability to dissent because of the gap between theory and practice. In capitalist states, dissent arises in more limited institutional contexts, notably over the excesses of administrative agencies or the dishonesty of executive authorities.”23 Zukin claims that due to the framework, the activity of Đilas or the Praxis group is closer to “whistle-blowing” in the United States than to East European dissidence. In the meantime, she also debates the “liberalism” of the Yugoslav state, suggesting rather discussing different strategies of control, such as creating a controlled space within the state: “neither self-management nor market socialism is as central to Yugoslav development as the relatively non-coercive strategies of labor mobilization and capital accumulation that the leadership established in response to internal and external pressures beginning in 1947 and 1948. And it is wrong to characterize these strategies as liberalism.”24 Even for critical intellectual positions, a publication in a scholarly journal or in the form of poetry could entail severe consequences.25 Editors of journals could also be dismissed by the “publisher” of the journal, i.e., the associations, companies, social, political, educational and other specialized professional institutions26 that were working under the umbrella of the SSRNJ.27

Besides the organizational aspect, according to the data provided by Pedro (Sabrina) Ramet, 80 per cent of journalists were party members and the information published about politics and the economy was acquired mostly via governmental channels. Robinson confirms Ramet’s thesis: based on research regarding “freedom of criticism in various Yugoslav elites,” journalists tend to be less critical than other groups of the Yugoslav decision-making élite.28 Part of the explanation for this tendency lies in the highly political process of their selection. Furthermore, there were annual reviews of the media products and the supervising body, like the publisher’s councils under the authority of the SSRNJ, which could issue warnings, impose penalties on editors, or even dismiss them and the journalists who wrote articles the council found unacceptable. In some cases, issues of journals or newspapers could be banned or confiscated. In the case of those newspapers, journals or magazines that were funded by the SKJ or the SSRNJ, the end of funding meant the end of the medium as well, the most famous example being the journal Praxis.29

The new Yugoslav feminists, therefore, did not face the same level of persecution that the dissidents of Central European countries or the Soviet Union did.30 On the other hand, there is barely any talk about the situation of women in the work of dissidence in Central Europe and the Soviet Union: they overlook the shortcomings of state socialism in this regard, which largely defines the possibilities of thinking about feminism in their discourse after 1989. The difficulties of developing a feminist movement in the new democracies in East Central Europe have been raised by many authors.31 In countries that offer a rich and compelling discussion of human rights, freedom of speech and social justice, the violation of women in the private sphere and exclusion of women from the public gets little attention, an issue that, with few exceptions, has not been examined by existing scholarship until very recently. The new Yugoslav feminist criticism of the state, although it was not a dissident group per se, but something between cooperation and dissidence, helps us to understand what would have been the opportunities in other East European countries to develop a feminist dissidence. The case of new Yugoslav feminism explains to us how the ambivalent emancipation offered by the state socialist regimes made it impossible for dissidents who by the 1980s almost entirely gave up on Marxism to relate to a feminism that had to at least partly acknowledge some of the improvements in the situation of women in socialist countries.32

Investigating Possibilities of a Feminist Critique of Marxian Thought and Yugoslav Socialism

Through their textual interventions, the new Yugoslav feminists not only opposed the state, they also stretched the boundaries of the ways academia thinks of itself and the ways the state presents the position of women in Yugoslavia. Through the reading of new feminist texts from the United States and Western Europe as well as critical Marxist texts from different schools of thought and sometimes even through philosophy from India, the new feminist discourse in Yugoslavia attributes new meanings to the concept of feminism itself. Their political action in academic discussions is rather a discursive one: balancing between disengagement and mainstreaming,33 they try to create a new language to talk about women’s emancipation and the relations between men and women. This involves not only redefining what feminism means, but also the reconceptualization of consciousness, women’s universal experience, patriarchy, family, work, “homosexuality,”34 the relationship between the private and the public as well as the introduction of the concept of gender.

The theme of the relations between the communists and the women’s movement is paradigmatic for the focus of the discourse, inasmuch that leftist, Marxist and socialist feminisms from all over the world prevail in the new Yugoslav feminist intertexts. This always linked the feminist discussions to the broader frame of Yugoslav state socialist ideology. Both the context and the audience, i.e., the community of the text’s implied readers (including the fellow authors in this very issue of the journal Dometi [Throw], mostly from the Žena i društvo group), support this interpretation. There is a debate about a new approach (novi pristup) to the women’s question (žensko pitanje) in Yugoslavia, which for the protagonists of my text is more or less explicitly the new feminism, neofeminizam. In several introductions of journal special issues, the editors openly admit that their quest aims to learn from the feminists elsewhere—the difference is in the scale of how many positive elements they find and to what extent is it the negative examples that teach about paths not to be taken. Therefore, it is not only Žarana Papić in the more independent youth journal Student in 1976 (cf. below), but also several articles in Žena and other journals, such as Argumenti (publishing a documentation of the legendary 1978 Drug-ca žena conference) that give voice to the opinion framed by Mirjana Oklobdžija in Dometi “that even today, in all societies to a smaller or greater extent, women are ‘second rate citizens.’”35

Instead of the state-offered discourse on the women’s question (žensko pitanje), investigations of the ideas of the new feminism bring along a conceptual replacement of the former with the latter. Texts started to emerge only in the early 1970s: reports on the new feminist movement in the United States and various countries of Western Europe, from time to time even South America and Asia, were also published. In reflection on the proclaimed success of women’s emancipation in Yugoslavia, there are at least two parallel stories about feminisms “elsewhere” with emphasis on the “new feminism.” Telling the story of new feminisms in the world involves evaluation and therefore reveals the opinion of the authors, in the manner of which these can be read as manifestos on behalf of the authors. Especially in case of those Yugoslav new feminists who, either as young scholars, like Rada Iveković or Žarana Papić, or as established professors, like Blaženka Despot or Gordana Bosanac, were attempting to introduce a new, competing ideology for which the innocent-looking informative introductions to the currents of “new feminism” in other countries proved to be a good strategy.

In exploring the different strategies aimed at gaining a place in the discourse for new feminism through transfers and translations, I read Rada Iveković’s review on Italian feminism as an implicit programmatic text for the new feminism in Yugoslavia. The article was published almost ten years after the first endeavors to understand the new feminist phenomena, the time being mature enough for making explicit claims of themes and concepts. In Iveković’s article,36 feminism is presented through the history of the Italian communists, which bears many similarities to the history of Yugoslav communists. What makes the text programmatic is the way the author makes an attempt to reconcile the relationship between the women’s movement and the communists – in Italy. The story Iveković presents can be read as an implicit parabolic tale for how the relationship of feminism and the communist party should take shape in Yugoslavia. It does tell the story without explicitly pointing out the similarities, though these similarities nevertheless stand out.

The article begins with the emphasis on the proletarian roots of the women’s movement, which outweigh the traditions of the civil-rights-based bourgeois roots. Iveković discusses in detail the situation and its consequences when the more radical and revolutionary women at the fin-de-siècle joined the Socialist Party of Italy (SPI), which in 1911 severed the ties with the bourgeois women’s groups that were demanding franchise for women. This meant the “liquidation of the women’s question,” with the elimination of the claim for suffrage, which was otherwise also supported by the revolutionary feminists. The SPI’s argument was that this issue did not concern either the class struggle or the working class and thus the paths of the communists and the women’s movement parted for a lengthy period of time. According to Iveković, the interwar period brought along the recognition that there was need for a separate proletarian women’s movement, because the working class is ruled by conservative prejudice against women. However, not much changed in the interwar period, when the major issue was the struggle against fascism and women’s emancipation was present only as a remnant from the previous century (“instead of the swing of the revolutionary flame”).

After the overview of the changes after the Second World War, including the guarantee of the franchise for women, Iveković summarizes the conclusion for the new Italian feminists: despite the normative questions being solved and the laws having been changed “in bourgeois society,” the patriarchal mentality prevailed, proving to be the main barrier to women’s liberation (37). This conclusion is followed by a positive evaluation of the appearance of neofeminizam in Italy in the years 1968–69, which stemmed from the new left movements and student protests, from the experience that even within the student movement women face the same marginalization and discrimination. Feminism in Italy, Iveković concludes, is “without doubt an oppositional movement in relation to the existing social order” as “masses of women, mostly young ones, cannot identify with a single existing political party, not even in the left” (39, emphasis mine). Besides this left-wing feminism, Iveković mentions “that other feminism,” “bourgeois and sexist, which identifies men as the enemy” This idea comes up in other texts I analyze below, addressing the juxtaposition of “good” and “bad” feminisms.

The importance and specificity of neofeminizam in Italy lay in highlighting various topics, which repeatedly return as central concepts of the new Yugoslav feminist discourse: women’s creativity in the arts and the humanities, the debates about sexuality (in Italy mostly with regard to the right to contraception and abortion), consciousness-raising – and through this, the relations between the public and the private, domestic violence and sexual violence. The article ends with the optimistic conclusion: “It is encouraging [to see] that all women with a leftist orientation in Italy are in accord in their struggle, regardless of whether they belong or do not belong to regular parties. Because they all belong to the women’s movement in a broad sense. This way, today even communist women proudly announce that they are also feminists (44).” The story Iveković tells, with the closure about the success of the feminists, makes the reader think of this as a path to follow.

The implied conclusions for the new Yugoslav feminism are manifold. The argument that the roots of the women’s movement, both in the late nineteenth century—fin-de-siècle (first wave) and in the 1960s (second wave), are deeper in the worker’s movement and the in the political left in general addresses both the state establishment and those who want to join the new groups and share the ideas. Further elements of the analysis, which can be directly translated into the current Yugoslav context, are those of the relations between the SPI and the women’s movements in the interwar period and during the Second World War, highlighting the parallel between the NOB (Narodna oslobodilačka borba – People’s Liberation Struggle) and the Alijansa ženskih pokreta [Alliance of the Women’s Movements] and the feminist examination of the reasons for which women’s equality had not been achieved despite the new post-Second World War legislation meant to ensure equality. The ambiguous relationship between the SPI and the women’s movement as allies and rivals of each other is clarified when Iveković points out the oppositional nature of the movement.

The closure of the article is of major significance from a terminological perspective: whereas Iveković does not differentiate between the use of the terms women’s movement and feminism throughout the article, here she makes a distinction. To her, the two concepts are synonymous—women’s movements are based on feminist ideology—and it is a significant development in the Italian context that communist women support feminism. In the meantime, Iveković clarifies the agenda and therefore the meaning of new feminism, which is defined along themes and concepts that are recurrently present in the Yugoslav case as well.

The recognition of different women’s movements and, therefore, feminisms leads to the description of the different currents of feminism through opposing pairs in the early Yugoslav publications. These texts categorize feminism according to the distinction between radical revolutionary women’s movements (Marxist) and bourgeois movements, on the one hand, and extremist (radical, hyper-feminist) movements as opposed to the moderate (socialist, Marxist) movements on the other hand. The two oppositions are clearly contradict one another and represent a certain socialist conservatism when it comes to self-expression.

Silva Mežnarić, a sociologist and editor of the journal Žena who lived both in Zagreb and Ljubljana and was a member of the KDAŽ Croatia in 1972 and joined the feminist group Žena i društvo, initiated a series of articles introducing American feminism. The “series” ended after two articles and feminism as a topic returns on the pages of Žena only in 1975 with the United Nations’ “Year of Women” in 1975, which was followed by the “Decade of Women”, lasting until 1985. Mežnarić’s first article in 1972 bears the investigative title “What is Happening to the American Woman?”37 Her claim is that she wants to demystify the way this “socially-ideationally relevant phenomenon” (57) had been presented in the media up to then. She emphasizes that new feminism is not only relevant in the society in which it originates, alluding to the Yugoslav situation, and adds that her aim is not to judge, rather to represent based on the work of other researchers. Using analyses from economics and sociology, the author shows the economic and social problems American women face, including employment and reproduction. Mežnarić’s conclusion is that the situation of women in both communist and capitalist modernized societies legitimizes feminist claims.

A few years later, in 1976 in Portorož, at the first official conference about women in which the new Yugoslav feminists participated, Gordana Cerjan-Letica mentioned the problem of the lack of knowledge of and limited access to information about new feminism in Yugoslavia. To her, this is the reason for “so many non-objective and scholarly non-justifiable criticism by us against the feminist movement.”38 In this other publication from the same year, Cerjan-Letica prepared an overview of feminism that discussed the issues of radicalism in feminism.39 Summarizing the past ten years of American new feminism, she noticed that radical feminists “in the track of the sensibility of the New Left” politicize “the most human and most hidden spheres of human life–such as the family, marriage, sexuality”(8).

Other authors approached American radical feminists with much more caution. A selection of texts by the members of the Žena i društvo group was published in a 1978 issue of Pitanja entitled “Women, or about Freedom.” The issue claims to be about the žensko pitanje and not feminism, while most of the inspiring and quoted texts and the questions posed are those of new feminism. The Sarajevo-based social scientist, Nada Ler-Sofronić, provided a thought-provoking new theoretical-methodological framework based on a critical reading of new feminist theory from the West for dealing with women’s inequality in Yugoslavia. The selection of authors is colorful and while she is dismissive of Shulamith Firestone for her “extremeness,” “overvaluation of women’s characteristics” and for overemphasizing “women’s nature,”40 she is appreciative of Betty Friedan. Whereas Friedan is often criticized by left-wing feminists both in the United States and elsewhere for her bourgeois lens of analysis, Ler-Sofronić realises that Friedan criticizes bourgeois values when speaking of the lives of bourgeois women. She finds the idealization of women by the radical feminist Firestone more problematic: authors like Firestone are “mistakenly” called “radical,” reclaiming “radicalism” as a synonym for “revolutionary” (21).

Jasna Tkalec also welcomed “radical legislative change,” in this case in France. She embraced the French “new feminism” born in the aftermath of May 1968, which had a radical agenda with “the radical demands for the equality of sexual morals for men and women, loudly seeking rehabilitation from a Freudian position of women’s erotica, the sexuality of children and adolescents and even of homosexuality.”41 This text, inspired by Edgar Morin’s essay in the volume La Femme majeure42 interprets the new French feminism as a human-rights movement (1162), whereas it realizes that, despite the similarities between the feminist discourse and those of Marxism and “decolonialism,” women cannot be treated either as a class or as an ethnic group. Tkalec suggests looking at women as a “bio-social class” and valorizes the potential of the radical demands within the women’s movement (i.e., new feminism), which introduces a specific culture of revolution to the West (1167). The radical demand of the new feminism involves “a reanalysis of the entire social system with regard to the past and future as well. This research raises and actualizes fundamental social and scientific problems and rephrases them in a completely new way” (1167).

A colorful image of feminism unfolds from this range of highly different texts. Revolution in feminism has the appreciation of the authors, while radicalism is already ambiguous. The attributed meanings vary from positive, for example in the sense of “revolutionary,” to problematic as much as it is “bourgeois.” Bourgeois feminism is unanimously criticized by all authors. Another characteristic of the early steps the new feminists in Yugoslavia took is the strategy of suggesting that at the new manifestations of feminism be regarded as relevant due to the “universal experience” of women from the perspective of the ideas presented and from the perspective of “our still patriarchal environment.”43 Universality is useful not only as a “disguise” of the dissenting ideas, but as a category countering the idea that the solution to the class questions is a solution to the women’s question as well.

One of the early examples appears in an issue of Student, edited by Žarana Papić and Ivan Vejvoda in 1976 (a rare case in which only foreign material is presented in translation). It includes texts from Robin Morgan’s edited volume Sisterhood is Powerful by Zoe Moss and Pat Mainardi (from the Redstockings group, which belongs to the above- mentioned “radical” Women’s Liberation groups), an interview with Luce Irigaray by Cathèrine Clément that appeared originally in La Nouvelle Critique, one text by Marie-Thérèse Baudrillard from Politique Hebdo and an excerpt from Shulamith Firestone’s The Dialectic of Sex. What they state in the introduction may not look extremely complicated:

It is interesting to get acquainted with insights of the new thinking of the “problem” of women, her speech (govor), agency (delanje) and living (življenje), and this through a mosaic of broad elements, from analytical-theoretical approaches to personal statements. Though here it is seemingly only about “foreign experience,” a lot of this experience of women is universal.44

 

The introduction does not identify the selection of texts as feminist, but it also avoids the term žensko pitanje through use of “the ‘problem’ of women,” where the quotation marks distance the authors from identifying with those who consider women a “problem.” The terms agency and speech point toward the language of the new feminism as does the selection from the more avant-garde or radical texts, which, by other authors in the Yugoslav publications, are dismissed for various reasons. The reasons for this can be well organized around the evaluation of and reservation to a stream of feminism as radical, revolutionary or extremist on the one hand, and reactionary-bourgeois on the other hand. The identification or appreciation of these varieties of feminism is rather divergent and needs to be treated in the “revolutionary Yugoslav” context.

The choices of Papić and Vejvoda reflect an appreciation of the radical stream of American feminism as well as of the more theoretical, but rather avant-garde, French wave. The tendency to affiliate oneself with the socialist Western feminists and thus legitimate the introduction of these ideas into the local context prevails in the Yugoslav new feminist context, however, in this case there is also an attempt to reconcile the complex theoretical approach of Irigaray (and elsewhere, Hélène Cixous and Julia Kristeva) with an expectation that writing about society serves the revolutionary change in that very society. The cross-reading of radical feminism with French post-structuralism is an “invention” of the Yugoslav feminists and here is made explicit by the choice of an interview with Irigaray, conducted by Catherine Clément, instead of an excerpt from her Speculum de l’autre femme45 with regard to which the interview was made.46 For discussing the social use of theories, writings and artworks, Clément returns to the concept of struggle (borba in Serbo-Croatian and lutte/combat in French). Clément’s choice of the word has a new relevance in the new context of the space defined by the success ideology of the NOB. This was followed by smaller-scale “struggles” for the fulfilment of the aims of self-managing socialism.

Clément contextualizes Irigaray within 1968 as a movement: “Where, what kind of a relation do you think you have with women’s struggle? The question is all the more important since your book was not a book which we would usually call as one designed for struggles?”47 Irigaray explains her position, which she begins with the assertion that to her, all philosophical discussions have political implications:

 

Maybe we should go that far that we say there is no “politics” of women that does not take shape either in the form of apolitical statements or disavowal of the political, this is already a demand (zahtjev) which must be fulfilled. [...] In the meantime, if the starting point of women’s struggle (borba) is simply to get to the steering wheel of power, then women wanted what they don’t [want] to be subordinated to the phallic order. […] However, we need to be constantly and without mistakes alert. Phallocracy most probably still has not exhausted all its resources. Are we not witnesses to how today men overtake the women’s question (žensko pitanje)? It is important for them to be able to keep the initiative within the[ir] discourse.48

 

What Irigaray does in her Speculum is political and radical. Her radicalism is read into a Yugoslav context in which radicalism is read as revolutionary struggle. Through this reading in Student, Irigaray is brought into a dialogue with American second-wave radicalism (even though radicalism assumes different meanings in the original contexts of French theory and the U.S. movement) as she identifies the need for radical (down to the roots) change in the discourse conveying power relations. Getting positions in the existing phallic [phallogocentric] order does not change the discourse and the place of women within that discourse. The “women’s question” gets appropriated by male political actors and immersed into the existing order; Irigaray does not spell it out here, however—her train of thought reminds of the dichotomy between the use of the concept of the “women’s question” and the use of the concept “feminism”, with the underlying political and strategic implications. As feminism takes the women’s question out of the patriarchal context, it means taking the initiative and means intervention into the discourse.

Radicalism, and in relation to that, revolution and the revolutionary nature of an ideology or movement, is a recurrent theme in the new Yugoslav feminist writings of the 1970s and early 1980s and is a crucial factor in their self-positioning within the Yugoslav discursive space, simultaneously adjusting to and challenging the status quo. As we have seen above, Iveković, for example, based on Anna Maria Mazzoni’s classification, identifies the revolutionary branch of Italian feminism as progressive and points it out as exemplary; however, she refrains from calling it “radical.” One of the articles in the hereby analyzed issue of Student, from Sisterhood is Powerful by Pat Mainardi, discusses the “politics of housework,” which is not only relevant from the point of the relations between the private and the public, but also for a statement that identifies the “women’s liberation movement” as “revolution.”49 Here we find a conceptually fascinating distinction between radical revolutionary women’s movements and bourgeois women’s movements, on the one hand, and extremist (radical) ones as opposed to the moderate (socialist) ones on the other.

In Catherine Clément’s previously analyzed interview with Luce Irigaray, Clément and Irigaray agree on the need for a radical change of discourse and then they go even further via Irigaray’s answer to Cléments’s question of whether she thinks the “class struggle” would sufficiently describe these power relations. Irigaray points out that this is exactly the reason for which radical change is needed: men “overtake the women’s question.” Irigaray turns the question around and suggests that class be translated into “men and women” and then adds: “Or, we should admit that today’s praxis of Marxism is not willing to acknowledge this difference and this exploitation of women.”50 This takes us to another crucial question dividing the state discourse and the new feminist discourse, considering whether solving the class question automatically solves gender equality and makes women’s oppression disappear. Irigaray resists this idea by emphasizing that Marxism, at its present stage, is not sufficient. This is in contrast with the claims of the KDAŽ, even with regard to the International Year of Women, when the problems women faced were thematized, or the introductions in books like Đorđević’s Žensko pitanje, which treat the work of Marx, Engels and the early Marxists as not very detailed, but in principle authoritative with regard to the women’s question and which persistently take the žensko pitanje back to the realization of općeljudske emancipacije.

Whereas in the local feminist mythology the 1976 Portorož conference does not hold the same place as 1978, looking at the documentation of the debate we find most of the most important ideas of the new Yugoslav feminists there.51 At this time, Gordana Bosanac and Anđelka Milić were members of the editorial board of the journal and Lydia Sklevický, Vesna Pusić, Nadežda Čačinovič-Puhovski, Silva Mežnarić and Gordana Cerjan-Letica all participated in the conference. Members of the editorial board apparently had to explain themselves for the appearance of the feministička grupacija at the meeting, offering a variety of understandings of what feminism is: “it is important to differentiate between the feminist movement in its basic starting point and of a provocation for a fight against the male sex and the […] progressive movement of women who search for a way for their own action […] for the political, economic, cultural and other forms of development in their own country.”52 The introduction, however, emphasizes the importance of the Marxist stakes in the issue of women and the family, especially the contributions of Vranicki and Šoljan to the conference. So does the closing speech by Breda Pavlić, with the usual conclusion that, on the one hand, many of the demands of the Western feminists have been provided to women in Yugoslavia and, on the other hand, that if feminists want to achieve their goals, they have to return to Marx.53 This happens only to a certain extent: there is a left-wing, most often Marxist, inclination in the feminist theories written by the new Yugoslav feminists, but they almost unanimously refuse to subsume women’s equality to the class question.

Despite the editorial board’s gesture to diminish the significance of the feminist participants, they claim the legitimacy of new feminism. Sklevický, in highlighting the importance of the “history of forgotten sisters,” describes the transition from the “old” feminism to the new wave, which realizes that basic rights do not ensure real gender equality, and therefore demands a liberation from gender roles through various actions.54 The English-language new or second-wave canon was introduced by Gordana Cerjan-Letica, for instance, Firestone; Friedan; Greer; Millett; Margaret Dixon; and Margaret Benston. Cerjan-Letica argued for the alignment of feminism with socialism: “the goal of a non-repressive civilization is there within all heterogeneous left-wing movements,” while refusing to treat women as a class.55 This, in her reading, makes feminism more radical in its demands for equality. Vesna Pusić addresses the anti-, or rather, post-feminist arguments: at first feminism may appear aggressive or explosive—it may even be accused of theoretical incoherence; “however, if we approach it as a manifestation of one broad, global theory, we will much more easily get the dimension of the universality it contains. In other words, even if it is not a theory in itself, it presents a manifestation and is integral part of one broad theory of social change and dialectical development of society.”56

By the time the 1978 conference took place in Belgrade, the new Yugoslav feminists became more and more conscious of radical feminism being closer to their own vision of feminism, revaluation what “radical” and “military” means, with reference to the revolutionary partisan tradition as a source of legitimacy. An effective strategy of Vesna Kesić in the magazine Start is to compare the feminist movement to the workers’ movement. The comparison is triggered by Kesić’s annoyance with the “militant” epitheton ornans of all feminisms in all times, also present in the state representatives’ discussion of feminism. While it is hard to see what it means, writes Kesić, “this is as if the workers on strike would be advised not to choose such a ‘militant’ way of fighting,” and “fighting” here is a “re-vindication of one’s rights.”57 Clearly, a political system supporting the workers in all places to stand up for their rights and heralding the workers being self-managers of their lives in Yugoslavia as well as women’s equality cannot afford labelling women voicing the exact same “militant” demands. In the very same magazine, Slavenka Drakulić reflects at length on the role and challenges of feminism “as a revolutionary movement.”58 Nada Ler-Sofronić even reclaims “radical” for those revolutionary leftist ideas she agrees with: due to its essentialism, she suggests that Shulamith Firestone’s The Dialectic of Sex from 1970 is incorrectly categorized as “radical” and that it is rather “extreme” feminism.59

Conclusion

The quest for meanings of feminism and the possibilities to employ feminist ideas for change—slow and transitional or radical change—in the position of women in Yugoslavia lies behind the early intellectual endeavors of the new Yugoslav feminists. Whether looking at Italian feminism in historical perspective or investigating recent feminist theories and movements, the aim is always to see the relevance of these for the Yugoslav case. The theoretical criticisms shed light on the contradictions within the emancipation project promised by the socialist state and its implementation. It is, however, this promise on behalf of the state that makes the relationship with the feminist groups multi-layered and instead of being dissident (which many radical feminist groups become in other countries),60 the position of the new Yugoslav feminists vis-à-vis the state is critical or dissenting. This position is made easier by the flexibilities within the Yugoslav regime as much as the access to institutions and publication possibilities is concerned. The systematic reading of theories, especially their discussion and their publication, was made possible at least in part by these infrastructures and the discursive practices and linguistic interventions paved the way for activism. They formulated a critique of the socialist regimes that no other opposition group could. Thus they reformulated the relevance of feminism in the region and by challenging the policies and institutions introduced by the socialist governments to achieve the equality of women and men, they offer a different vision of women’s emancipation and gender equality.

 

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Unspectacular Destalinization: The Case of Slovak Writers after 1956

Juraj Marušiak

Institute of Political Science, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava

 

On the basis of archival sources, in this essay I examine the debates that took place among Slovak writers in the spring of 1956 and afterwards. I focus on the clashes between the Union of Slovak Writers and the leadership of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (CPCz) that began at the time, and also on the internal discussions among the pro-Communist intellectuals concerning the interpretation of de-Stalinization process. The CPCz leadership essentially brought an end to the “political discussion” which temporarily had been allowed during the “thaw” following the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). Research shows that the relatively weak persecutions allowed the gradual development of reformist thinking and the pluralization of the literary life in Slovakia in the second half of the 1950s and, later, in the 1960s. The political clashes between writers and Communist Party took place in both parts of Czechoslovakia in different ways.

Keywords: de-Stalinization; Union of Czechoslovak Writers, Union of Slovak Writers, liberalization, Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, Communist Party of Slovakia

Introduction

On the eve of the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), the process of reconstructing the communist regime in Czechoslovakia after the crisis in 1953 had come to an end, both in terms of the establishment of a new balance of power within the narrow leadership of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia and in terms of setting the political and socio-economic priorities of the communist power. In this essay, I examine the cultural ferment in Slovakia in the spring of 1956 and its aftermath. I focus in particular on the attempts of Slovak writers, mainly those who were members or supporters of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, to liberalize ideological control over literature, which included censorship in practice and an insistence on the principles of so-called Socialist Realism. My aim is to discuss the extent to which the rebellion on the part of the Slovak writers was a predominantly autonomous process in the context of the community of writers in Czechoslovakia. I will also seek an answer to the question as to why Slovak intellectuals, who were struggling for the liberalization of the regime, were not able to exert stronger influence on Slovak society.

The Early Phase of Criticism

In Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Hungary, the process of the gradual “de-canonization” of so-called Socialist Realism as an obligatory and exclusively allowed style of art had begun before 1956. In 1954, literary texts began to appear disputing the heroic pathos of the “construction of Socialism,” abandoning “Manichean worldviews” and didactic approaches, and seeking to “inform, inculcate, and inspire”1 readers. The return to individual reflections and emotions, instead of the officially required glorification of the official ideology and policies, was significant for the novel Sklený vrch [The glass hill] by Slovak writer Alfonz Bednár2 and the book of poetry by Ivan Kupec entitled Nížinami výšinami [Through the lowlands, through the uplands].3 However, the first open argument broke out at the end of 1955, when Kupec and novelist Dominik Tatarka (a man who, in 1948–55, had been an active supporter of Socialist Realism and Stalinism) started to criticize the official concept of art and literature openly. Kupec,4 together with Ján Brezina and other poets, sought the separation of art from political propaganda.

The issue of the autonomy of culture and, in particular, literature from state control was openly raised by Tatarka, when he criticized the novel Drevená dedina [Wooden village]5 by František Hečko, which at that time was considered the most outstanding Slovak “socialist” novel and was praised by the state propaganda. According to Tatarka, the novel was an example of “artificial, scholastic literature.”6 Tatarka criticized the growing role of the apparatus of the Union of Slovak Writers, and he claimed to create literary groups outside the structures of the Union, i.e. he claimed to seek to change the mission of the Union as a tool that was used to exert control over writers to further the Party’ s ideological control over literature. His article met with a negative reaction. Novelist Vladimír Mináč accused Tatarka and Kupec of having made “attempts to reconcile idealist esthetics with the esthetics of dialectic materialism.”7 Hečko, the author of the novel that Tatarka and Kupec had criticized, merged the ideological and political arguments in order to stifle Tatarka. According to him, both Kupec and Tatarka were ready to “sell all our socialism for a cherrystone.”8 No restrictive measures were taken against Tatarka or Kupec, which would have been unimaginable in the first half of the decade. But during the first months of 1956, the discussion in the weekly Kultúrny život [Cultural life]9 continued. Subsequently, Tatarka criticized not only the abovementioned novel “Wooden Village” as a “tragic mistake of the Slovak literature,” but also the entire official concept of literature, which according to him was “non-realistic, non-scientific, [and] misleading.” He raised the following questions: “[does] our contemporary [literature] express the truth of our life and the feeling of our life? [Does it express our feelings as people] who went through World War II, [and] who fight against the next war?”10 In his reports, which were published after he had taken trips in Western Europe, he stated, “we don’t want the division of the world, which was invented by the enemy.”11 This statement prompted a negative response on the part of the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Slovakia (CPS) Karol Bacílek.12 The dispute between Tatarka on the one hand and Mináč and Hečko on the other is an example of the “differentiation of the political languages of Marxism.”13 However, it began before the 20th Congress of the CPSU. In fact, Tatarka disavowed one of the key aims of Socialist Realism when he stressed that he never wanted to “construct a new type of human.”14

The pace of discussions in Kultúrny život accelerated after the 20th Congress of CPSU, as the condemnation of Joseph Stalin by the first secretary of the Soviet Communists Nikita Khrushchev caused an “essential crisis of identity,” in particular among members of the younger generation of the communist intelligentsia. 15 Former CPS official and writer Juraj Špitzer, referring to the Polish literary scientist Stefan Żółkiewski, made the following contention: “discussion of art is political discussion… discussion of the all of life, all social issues, the direction of their development.”16 In opposition to the Secretary of the Union of Slovak Writers Ctibor Štítnický, Špitzer tried to publish texts by authors who had been the main representatives of Slovak literature before World War II, but these writings had been put on the “black list” since the Communist coup in February 1948 (works by authors such as Milo Urban, Emil Boleslav Lukáč, Ján Smrek, and Valentín Beniak). Špitzer called for a rehabilitation of Slovak surrealist (so-called “nadrealizmus”) poetry.17 Literary scientist Branislav Choma criticized the prevailing understanding of socialism as “too politicized, narrow, and inhumanly egoistic.” According to him, socialism had to be a “path to greater humanity, greater freedom, and a life that is actually nicer.”18 On the other hand, only two staunchly Social Realist poets, Andrej Plávka and Milan Lajčiak, openly defended the official cultural policy of the regime. According to Lajčiak, the discussion had to be stopped because it was becoming a “crossroad.” According to him, the freedom of writing was the freedom to write in an irresponsible manner.19 However, until April 1956, the discussion in Kultúrny život was focused on the issues strictly connected with the literature, and it did not affect the broader political and socio-economic context.

The 2nd Congress of Czechoslovak Writers and its Aftermath

The open conflict with the power center emerged during the 2nd Congress of Czechoslovak Writers (April 22–29, 1956). Kultúrny život adopted a pro-reform stance before reforms had even begun, and it declared its open support for Tatarka and his criticism of Drevená dedina. More and more articles were printed focusing on intellectual life in Poland, Hungary, and Yugoslavia, i.e. in the Soviet bloc countries in which people enjoyed a larger degree of freedom of speech. Initially, the leadership of the CPCz was anxious about the congress of writers, and it even considered postponing it, because party leaders expected that critics would begin to find a voice. The congress took place in the spring of 1956, when the “discussion” within the CPCz raised by the 20th Congress of the CPSU and the process of de-Stalinization reached its peak. About 425 basic Party organizations in Czechoslovakia demanded the convocation of an extraordinary Party congress, which would threaten the positions of the CPCz leadership. Among the Slovak writers, Stalinist methods were criticized mainly by Tatarka, Mináč, Ladislav Mňačko and Kupec. On the other hand, the CPCz party leadership appreciated the statements of Hečko and Štítnický, because they defended the “party-spirit of literature against the manifestations of liberalism.”20

During the congress, the most famous speeches were held by two Czech poets: Jaroslav Seifert and František Hrubín. Seifert proposed demanding the release of all imprisoned writers and inviting all silenced authors to cooperate.21 Hrubín required the independence of art from ideology.22 However, the Slovak writers were actively involved in the congress as well. The novelist Katarína Lazarová criticized the practices of the censors, although people were officially forbidden to speak about the existence of the main authority of press control.23 She said: “We were in the service of evil headlong. We simply believed that we served the people in the best way.”24 The Congress condemned “any authoritarian solution of the issues of creativity.” However, the statement according to which the processes which had begun at the 20th Congress of CPSU had been the “beginning of the new revolutionary process in our life” were not included in the congress’ final resolution.25 Nevertheless, the Congress, together with the protests led by university students (mainly in Prague and Bratislava), was the first open confrontation between the Communist power and society after the 20th Congress of CPSU. All speeches held at the congress were published in the extraordinary issues of the writers’ weekly newspaper Literární noviny [Literary newspaper] in Czech lands and Kultúrny život in Slovakia. At the same time, Démon súhlasu [Demon of agreement] by Tatarka was published in Kultúrny život in serial form.26 His prose belongs to the works of alignment with the period of Stalinism in Central and Eastern Europe, like the prosaic works by Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Vladimir Dudintsev in Russia, and Jerzy Andrzejewski, Kazimierz Brandys, and Adam Ważyk in Poland. The main message of the prose is a call for a return to human individuality and a thorough deconstruction of the mechanisms of hypocrisy among the people, who “lost their personality”27 in the period of Stalinism.

The first reactions of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of CPCz to the Congress, which was discussed during the session on April 25, 1956, were negative. According to the Bureau, the congress had become a “palace revolution against the Party leadership.” But they were mostly concerned with the speeches that had been held by Czech writers. Subsequently, the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the CPCz discussed the work and results of writer´s congress on May 21, 1956. According to Jiří Hendrych, the Party Secretary responsible for ideological affairs, “most of the writers remained unconvinced, and they oscillated.” He stressed the expression of “wrong opinions” and “hostile invectives.” According to the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the CPCz, the congress became an “extraordinary valuable… big political verification of our writers.” Among the Slovak writers, only Mináč and Lazarová won recognition. Hela Volanská was characterized in a negative way.28

The position of the pro-reform intellectuals within the Union of Slovak Writers was strengthened after its Plenary Session on June 1, 1956. The first secretary of the Slovak branch of the Union, Štítnický, who supported the official politics of the CPCz, suddenly adopted the pro-reform stance after the Congress. In his speech, he demanded the rehabilitation of the Slovak communist intellectuals who were associated with DAV, a left-leaning journal published between 1924 and 1937. At the beginning of the 1950s, they were accused of being “Slovak bourgeois nationalists,” and they were even sentenced in the political trials in 1954. Štítnický condemned censorship.29 Tatarka demanded the ideological differentiation of the literary journals.30 The result of the plenary session was the appointment of Špitzer as the new editor-in-chief of Kultúrny život. At the time, Špitzer gave voice to criticism of the Stalinist cultural policy, and he advocated a principle of plurality of views published in the journal, although in 1950–51 he was one of the main promoters of Stalinism in Slovak art, and he actively participated in the Stalinist purges among the writers.31 The most important outcome of the plenary session was the decision to establish a new literary journal entitled Mladá tvorba [Young creation], focusing on the younger generation of writers. Poet and journalist Milan Ferko was appointed as the first editor-in-chief of the new journal.

On May 2, 1956, the Political Bureau of the CPCz, due to the intervention of the Embassy of the USSR in Prague, decided to stop the “discussion,” i.e. the short-term liberalization. Already the General Party Conference, which had been held on June 11–15, 1956 instead of the extraordinary congress of the CPCz, condemned any demands for substantial changes of the official course in order to avoid any requirements for personnel changes. Only the “ideological front” had been identified as a crucial point in the struggle against the “class enemy.” One of the most sharply criticized members of the Political Bureau of the CPCz, Václav Kopecký, the most emphatic representative of the rigid ideological stance, described the writers’ congress as “passionate exaltations in the spirit of pure liberalism.” He equated Literární noviny with Radio Free Europe, and he appealed to writers “to clarify their attitude to the speeches presented at the congress,” i.e. to disavow the congress. Subsequently, he stressed that only the Union of Writers would be held responsible for it.32 In fact, Kopecký was the first party official who publicly condemned the congress and the student revolts, along with Antonín Zápotocký (who had been serving President of the Czechoslovak Republic since Stalin’s death in 1953) and Zdeněk Fierlinger (Speaker of the National Assembly of Czehoslovakia), who attacked the discontented writers immediately during the congress debates. Kopecký held his speech without having consulted with other members of the Party leadership. Therefore, initially, at the first session of the Political Bureau since the General Party Conference on June 30, 1956, he was criticized not only by A. Zápotocký, but also by Antonín Novotný, the First Secretary of CPCz. On the other hand, another member of the Political Bureau, Czechoslovak Minister of Interior Rudolf Barák, backed Kopecký up. Finally, the Czechoslovak Party leadership gave its support to Kopecký.33

In the summer and autumn of 1956, Kultúrny život published editorials written by the former Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPS (1944) and the President of the Slovak Academy of Sciences Ondrej Pavlík, who criticized the Party policy towards intellectuals and reform of education system in 1953 prepared by the Commissioner for Education and Culture Ernest Sýkora, representative of the hard-liners within the CPS.34 However, Pavlík was known not only as the author of some of the abovementioned articles indirectly attacking the members of the Slovak Party leadership. Several times, he had expressed his support of the rehabilitation of the communist victims of Stalinist political trials, namely in the case of Gustáv Husák and Ladislav Novomeský, who had been accused of “Slovak bourgeois nationalism” and sentenced in 1954.35 The resistance of the group of writers connected with Kultúrny život would probably have been impossible without close informal contacts with some of the members of Central Committee of the CPS apparatus, such as Ladislav Ťažký (who was also a writer), Ján Komiňár (instructor of the Central Committee of the CPS for literature), and philosopher Ján Uher (assistant to Augustín Michalička), who supported the pro-reform initiatives.36 Uher was the author of a noticeable article in which he inspired intellectuals to communicate with other social strata.37 However, the activities of these intellectuals and their informal meetings and discussions were monitored by the state security forces, and the state security officers sent regular information about them to the CPS leadership.

The leadership of the CPS discussed the activities of Slovak writers only in autumn 1956, on the eve of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. The report of the state security forces from September 1956 characterized Špitzer as a “saboteur.” According to the document, Špitzer and his collaborators “fight consciously, but in a sophisticated way, not only against certain party officials,38 but against the party leadership in general.”39 Novotný put pressure on Bacílek as well. He participated in the session of the Bureau of CPS on October 18, 1956, at which he stressed the “uneven development of the understanding of results of 20th Congress in Slovakia and in Czech lands.” According to him, there had been no open attacks against the party leadership in the Czech lands, but “[they] continue in Slovakia.” At the same time, he appealed to the leadership of the CPS to solve the “shortcomings in Kultúrny život.” Bacílek preferred a successive approach to a frontal attack. He considered removing Špitzer from Kultúrny život, strengthening censorship, and organizing a talk with Kupec. If they wouldn’t renounce their views, disciplinary measures would be taken. However, Novotný accused Bacílek of adopting a defensive approach. As a consequence of his intervention the report focusing on the ideological issues in Slovakia, which had been prepared by Bacílek, was rejected by the Bureau, which meant the weakening of the position of the First Secretary of the CPS. Subsequently, the so-called “Slovak bourgeois nationalism” was proclaimed the main political threat, and the campaign against it was resumed. Špitzer, according to Bacílek, was the “elder statesman,” i.e. an informal leader among the writers. As he said, Kupec was perceived by the CPS leadership as a man with “anti-Marxist” views, together with some other former interwar surrealist poets (Vladimír Reisel, Štefan Žáry, Pavol Bunčák) and novelist Bednár. The alliance of the rebelling intellectuals with some former Communist politicians (Špitzer, Plávka) was perceived by Bacílek and Pavol David as a threat to their power. According to Michalička, the Union of Slovak Writers became a “center of revisionist ideas,” and he stressed that not Špitzer, but the Secretary of Union Štítnický was the main source of their inspiration.40

Events in Hungary and Poland in October 1956 and the Suppression
of the Writers’ Resistance

The uprising in Hungary in October 1956 postponed a prepared intervention against the Union of Slovak Writers. Although the so-called “Polish October,” i.e. the appointment of the former victim of Stalinist persecutions Władysław Gomułka to the position of First Secretary of the Polish United Workers’ Party and the consequent liberalization of public life, was perceived by the CPCz leadership in a negative way, many Slovak intellectuals sympathized with the changes taking place in Poland. Tough censorship, however, did not allow them to publish any articles opposing the anti-intellectual stance of the CPCz leadership or the speech of Kopecký. Not only Mňačko, but also Mináč were not allowed to publish their articles or open letters reacting to Kopecký’s speech at the Party Conference in June 1956.41

At its session on October 24, 1956, the Party Group within the Union of Slovak Writers did not accept the interpretation of “Polish October” presented by Bacílek. According to its members, the “slowness of democratization, not the democratization itself, caused the events.” Špitzer considered preparing a protest against the dissolution of the Union of Hungarian Writers, but poet Ján Kostra, playwright Peter Karvaš, and Štítnický were against such a step.42 Finally, on October 26, 1956, the leadership of the Union of Czechoslovak Writers decided to condemn the Hungarian uprising “after the intervention of the Party.” Even writers who presented critical attitudes towards the official politics of CPCz before October 1956 participated in the discussions with the citizens living in southern Slovakia, organized by the CPS leadership, including Štítnický, Špitzer, Mináč, Ferko, and others. The aim of these discussions was to prevent the anti-communist mobilization of the members of the Hungarian minority in Slovakia in support of the Hungarian revolution.43

In spite of these intentions, Kultúrny život was criticized by the head of the Board of Commissioners Rudolf Strechaj because of the alleged misguidedness of the Hungarian revolution. In November 1956, similar statements were made during the informal meeting of Bacílek, Michalička, and other Party officials with writers at the premises of the Central Committee of the CPS. The criticism of some Czechoslovak writers to the official policy of CPCz didn’t mean their support to the Hungarian revolution. Therefore, Mňačko in March 1957 joined the delegation of Czechoslovak writers, together with Bohumil Říha, Jiří Marek (from Czech lands) and Viktor Egri (Hungarian writer from South Slovakia)44 to Hungary to conduct a meeting with Hungarian writers Pál Szabó and Pétér Véres. Their mission was to persuade Hungarian writers to support the regime of the new head of Hungarian Socialist Worker’s Party János Kádár.45

In December 1956, the CPS leadership started to use tougher language addressing the Slovak writers. This was in line with the new campaign against “revisionism,” i.e. attempts at political liberalization in the Soviet bloc. On December 15, 1956, Bacílek threatened to prohibit the insubordinate from publishing. David, as the main hardliner within the CPS leadership, quoted the slogan pronounced by Klement Gottwald: “We will not allow subversion of the republic,” which meant the direct threat of violent persecutions.46 Hečko, who by this time was the chairman of the Union of Slovak Writers and remained committed to the official stance of the CPS, fell into full isolation within organization. He was no longer able to control it, although the party leaders expressed appreciation for his loyalist positions several times. This was the reason for his resignation. In the letter addressed to the CPS leadership on 31 December 1956, he stressed that his resignation was a “protest against the ideological distortions and revisionist tendencies within the Union of Slovak Writers and in all their facilities.” He announced his withdrawal from the Union as well. Lazarová followed Hečko, and she withdrew from all duties within the Union of Slovak Writers as well, but she remained a member of organization.47

In spite of the increasingly open threats to the writers and the intervention of the official censorship, Kultúrny život pushed to continue its previous course. The editorial in the New Year issue in January 1957 confirmed the commitment of the journal to the 2nd Congress of Czechoslovak Writers. Kultúrny život was sharply attacked by the pro-regime writers, such as Miloš Krno48 and poetess Krista Bendová.49 Ideological Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPS Michalička was entrusted with the task of preparing a report on the situation in Kultúrny život and suggesting appropriate personnel measures. On the grounds of the reports of the state security forces, a new “categorization” of the Slovak writers and intellectuals was prepared. Hečko, Plávka, Mňačko, Lajčiak, Lazarová, Krno, and Bendová, along with philosophers Ladislav Szántó, Andrej Sirácky, and Michal Topoľský, literary scientist Andrej Mráz, historian Miloš Gosiorovský, and actor Andrej Bagar were evaluated in a positive way as loyal and committed to the Party. The second group of writers, who were not “on the platform of Socialism and Socialist Realism,” was, according to respective reports, represented by Špitzer, Tatarka, Kupec, Smrek, Reisel, Pavlík, Štítnický, poet Pavol Horov, literary scientist Alexander Matuška, etc. The third group, represented by poets Kostra and Vojtech Mihálik and novelist Ferdinand Gabaj, was characterized as “neutral.”50 However, the division of writers and intellectuals was more complicated. Some members of the first group were people who had joined the Communist Party before World War II or before the communist coup in February 1948, such as Szántó, Július J. Šefránek, Krno, Lajčiak, Sirácky, Plávka and Bagar, but some of them joined the Communist Party only after 1948, either out of of fear (Matuška) or for reasons of professional ambition, as in the case of Hečko, Gosiorovský, Mráz, Mihálik, Kostra, and others. Some of the intellectuals, who were mentioned in the category of “loyal” party members, already adopted a more critical stance with regards to the official course of CPCz, namely Mňačko and Lazarová. However, Mňačko, in spite of his critical remarks concerning official politics, maintained a close personal friendship with Bacílek,51 and Lazarová was a secret informant of the state security forces. Some writers (Horov, Matuška) manifested their critical stance towards the politics of the CPCz only in private conversations, but the state security forces were well informed about these conversations. By that time, Smrek and Lukáč had been sent into “internal exile”. Before the establishment of communist rule, they had been prominent poets, but due to their political engagement or non-Marxist ideological orientations they were essentially not allowed to publish their works.52

Bednár, who was not a member of the Communist Party and expressed his critical stance towards Stalinism, had been assumed to be the exemplary victim of the planned repressive measures, announced by David. His book Hodiny a minúty [Hours and Minutes], (1956) contained critical reflections on the moral failures of some active participants in the anti-fascist resistance after World War II and during the period of Stalinism. He wrote about misuses of power, careerism, etc. The book was published during the short period of political “thaw” in 1956, when censorship was more relaxed. The official daily of the CPS, Pravda [Truth], published a review by an official of the Central Committee of the CPS apparatus Viliam Šalgovič (who was a former officer of the state security forces). According to him, Bednár was on the same platform as the people “we had fought against in the past,” i.e. on the platform of the fascists and enemies of Socialism.53 The state security forces considered imprisoning him, but the Party group in the Union of Slovak Writers in autumn 1956 refused to persecute Bednár. His book was reviewed in a positive way by many other writers and literary scientists, including Mňačko, Michal Chorváth, Ján Rozner, and others. In fact, none of the intellectuals was willing to publish a negative review, which would have contributed to his eventual imprisonment. On the other hand, the Commissioner of Interior Oskár Jeleň stated that the content of Bednár’s book was “scary” and aimed “against our regime.” He pointed out that the editors of Kultúrny život regularly submitted articles with “doubtful content,” and they tried to persuade the officials of the STD to allow them to be published. Other members of the Bureau of the CPS urged the adoption of rigorous measures. David stressed that the conflict with Kultúrny život had to be solved at least before the CPS congress, scheduled for April 1957.54 The Slovak leadership put economic pressure on the Union of Slovak Writers as well. They reduced the circulation of the literary journals Kultúrny život, Mladá tvorba, and Slovenské pohľady [Slovak views], all of which were published by the Union, allegedly because of a “shortage of paper.”55 Whereas Bednár managed to publish his book in the short period of thaw, the publication of a volume of short stories by Mináč entitled Z nedávnych čias [From the recent past],56 which was prepared for release in 1957, was forbidden.

The presidium of the Union of Slovak Writers initiated an informal meeting with Zápotocký. The head of the Union’s delegation was the chair of the Party group within the Union, translator Zora Jesenská. Špitzer was also a member of the delegation. He tried to explain to the president the arguments of the discontented writers. He rejected the notion that there was any connection between the “discussion” in Czechoslovakia and the Hungarian revolution, but he also disputed the official interpretation of the events in Hungary. According to him, the mere lack of the free exchange of ideas was the reason for the conflict. Zápotocký, however, did not make any changes to the hardline cultural policy. He stressed that the Party would not allow any discussion “aimed to destroy the target: socialism.” “You can discuss at the closed meetings, we can admit even heretical views there, but not in public.”57

The Slovak Party leadership decided on March 22, 1957 to establish a special commission at the Bureau led by Jeleň. At the same time, before the establishment of the commission, the members of the Bureau of the CPS decided to indicate Pavlík as an “ideological leader” of the “group” around the Kultúrny život, Kupec and Tatarka were indicated to be the main representatives of the “wrong views.” Špitzer was accused of being responsible for the publication of their works, and Štítnický was blamed for alleged “dodging and temporizing” within the leadership of the Union of Slovak Writers. Although Tatarka was criticized several times by the high-ranking party official, at least he was not identified as a member of this “group.” The purpose of the commission was to force the abovementioned intellectuals to deliver “self-criticism.”

The target of criticism was not only the Union of Writers and the literary journals Kultúrny život and Mladá tvorba, but also the Section of the Social Sciences in the Slovak Academy of Sciences, some other publishing houses, the Faculty of Arts of the Comenius University in Bratislava, and the journal Slovenské pohľady.” David suggested accusing the “group” consisting of Pavlík, Špitzer, Kupec and Štítnický of “bourgeois nationalism.” “We didn’t fight against them enough,” he contended.

The members of the commission established by the Bureau of the Central Committee of the CPS accused Pavlík and his colleagues of being the Slovak version of the “Petöfi circle,” the Hungarian forum of intellectual dissent in 1956. Jeleň compared the activities of Kultúrny život with the attempts to create a “second ideological center,” and the head of the Board of Commissioners accused Pavlík of ambitions to play the role of Imre Nagy in Slovakia. Initially, the Bureau of the CPS did not intend to expel the discontented intellectuals from the Party. However, the Czechoslovak Party leadership decided on April 9, 1957 to expel Pavlík from the Communist Party. Other members of the so-called “group,” i.e. Špitzer, Kupec, and Štítnický, were removed from their positions within the Union of Slovak Writers. Pro-regime poet Plávka was appointed as the new secretary of the Union of Slovak Writers. However, in his reply to a question of Novotný regarding the scope of the “group,” Bacílek insisted that Tatarka and Mináč were involved, in part. He stressed the existence of the close ties with other former Slovak high-ranking Communist politicians, namely Edo Friš, Samuel Falťan, and Anton Rašla.

In spite of the political and economic pressure put on the Union of Slovak Writers by the CPS leadership, the Party organization at the Union did not accept the resolution against Pavlík and Kultúrny život. Ján Prohácka became the new editor-in-chief of the journal. The campaign against the writers continued in June 1956, after the plenary session of the Central Committee of CPCz, which focused on ideological issues. Secretary of the Central Committee of CPCz Hendrych stressed that the CPCz leadership would not allow a “hostile crusade as a token of the struggle against so-called Stalinism, that is, an attempt to destroy the revolutionary foundations of our Marxist-Leninist doctrine.” He refused any manifestations of so-called “revisionism,” and he identified the major task as “discovering and disarming” all of its expressions permanently.58 Kopecký addressed his speech directly to the Union of Czechoslovak Writers. He demanded explicit distancing from the speeches that had been given by Hrubín and Seifert at the Congress in April 1956. He accused Mináč and Tatarka of “liberalism.”59 Subsequently, at the plenary session of Czech writers on June 26, 1957, the leaders of the Union of Czechoslovak Writers delivered a self-critical report, in which they rejected all “wrong tendencies.”60 The resolution of the plenary session contained a condemnation of the statements made at the Congress in 1956. Although the Slovak Union of Writers was only the regional branch of the single centralized writers’ union in Czechoslovakia, its reactions to Hendrych’s and Kopecký’s speeches were different. The leadership of the Slovak organization unanimously approved the thesis of Hendrych’s report, but they did not adopt any resolution condemning the writers’ congress or the activities of Kultúrny život. The enlarged session of the Party group at the Union of Slovak Writers convoked on September 18–19, 1957 in the presence of Bacílek, Jeleň, and Michalička with the aim of condemning the congress did not meet the expectations of the organizers. In fact, only Krno, Hečko, and the representative of the group of Ukrainian writers living in Slovakia supported the speeches of the official representatives of the Communist Party. The rest of writers present either did not say anything or rejected the persecutions against Kultúrny život, for instance Špitzer, Kupec, Mňačko, Štítnický, Mináč, Karvaš, and even the writers considered loyal pillars of the official cultural policy, such as Kostra. Some members of the Bureau of the Central Committee of CPS analyzing the results of the session said that the CPS did not have any “core” within the writers’ organization. The Slovak Party leadership considered the results of the meeting with the writers a clear failure. Therefore, the plenary session of the entire Union of Slovak Writers took place only on December 19–20, 1957, but the issue of the writers’ congress in April 1956 was not discussed.61 In February 1958, Tatarka was forced to withdraw from the Committee of the Union of Writers as well. The reasons were his articles published in Kultúrny život.

Conclusions

The rebellion conducted by some of the Czechoslovak intellectuals in 1956 was suppressed. However, whereas in the Czech lands the Czechoslovak Party leadership successfully managed to compel or persuade writers to capitulate, i.e. to distance themselves from the 2nd Congress of Czechoslovak Writers in April 1956, in Slovakia they did not enjoy the same success. Although the Slovak writers were not more radical in their requirements than their Czech colleagues, they resisted more efficaciously. The leadership of CPS was forced to restore control over the writers’ union and literary journals through administrative measures, although they tried to avoid it. One of the very important results of the short-term liberalization of cultural policy in Slovakia in the spring of 1956 was the establishment of the new literary journal Mladá tvorba. The new journal provided a forum for the publication of several “generation layers”62 of younger poets and writers who had not been able to or had not wanted to publish their works after 1948, because the works in question had not conformed to the obligatory style of “Socialist Realism.” From this perspective, the new milestones in Slovak literature were not only the novels and short stories by Bednár or “Demon of Agreement” by Tatarka, but also the publication of the first collection of poetry by Milan Rúfus (Až dozrieme, or “When We Grow Mature,” 1956), which became a signal of the comeback of lyrical poetry based on the individual’s reflections on the surrounding world. At the same time, the poetry of Kupec (Nížinami, výšinami, 1955) was a signal of the return to the sensualist poetry characteristic of the interwar avant-garde movements. The “thaw” in 1956 brought the first attempts to return to literature by non-communist authors, which had been forbidden since 1948. However, the process of the “rehabilitation” of the Slovak non-communist literary heritage took a long time, and it continued well into the second half of 1960s. In spite of the strengthening of censorship, which began in the summer of 1956, the volume of the new poetry of Smrek was published in 1958 (Obraz sveta, “Image of the World”), which contained several allegorical allusions to communist ideology and politics.

The most significant change was a discreet, unspectacular change in the relations between intellectuals and power. This process had already begun in 1955, thus, the 20th Congress of the CPSU was not so much a new spark as it was an event that catalyzed and accelerated discussions among the Slovak writers. Very strong informal ties persisted between pro-communist intellectuals, who remained committed to the official ideology in spite of having criticized the cultural policy of the regime and the lack of the freedom of speech. This was true of writers such as Mňačko, Štítnický, Mináč and Špitzer. On the other hand, if the ruling elites wanted to restore their control over the Union of Writers and the journal Kultúrny život, they could not rely on the loyal writers within the union and the literary community. They were forced to take administrative measures. Due to the low support among intellectuals, but also due to the exhaustion of the rigid style known as Socialist Realism, it was impossible to restore the esthetics and power relations in the field of culture that had prevailed in the period before 1956. The mechanisms of direct control and censorship were still applied, but to a lesser extent than in the first half of 1950s. In addition to these mechanisms, mechanisms of “negotiation” were often applied, especially in terms of censorship. The lack of any direct confrontation between the communist power and intellectuals in 1956 contributed to the gradual liberalization of cultural policy during the second wave of de-Stalinization in Czechoslovakia, which began in 1963. Although the “cultural ferment” in Czechoslovakia and, in particular, in Slovakia was in many ways connected with the processes underway at the time in Poland and Hungary, it was an autonomous movement. In the case of postwar Czechoslovakia, it is significant that even the clashes between the intellectuals and power took place, to a large extent, separately in the Czech lands and Slovakia.

Archival sources

Archív Asociácie organizácií spisovateľov Slovenska [Archives of the Association of the Organization of Writers of Slovakia], fond II. zjazd Zväzu československých spisovateľov.

National Archives in Prague (NA), Archives of Central Committee of Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (A ÚV KSČ), fond 01 – Plenary sessions of the Central Committee of CPCz.

National Archives in Prague (NA), Archives of Central Committee of Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (A ÚV KSČ), fond 02/2 – Presidium of the Central Committee of CPCz.

Personal Archives of Dalma Špitzerová.

Slovak National Archives (SNA), Archives of the Central Committee of Communist Party of Slovakia (A ÚV KSS), fond – Presidium of Central Committee of CPS (PÚV KSS).

Bibliography

II. sjezd Svazu československých spisovatelů 22.–29. 4. 1956, vol. I. (protokol) [2nd Congress of the Union of Czechoslovak Writers, 22–29 April 1956, vol. 1. protocol], edited by Michal Bauer. Prague: Akropolis, 2011.

Bátorová, Mária. Dominik Tatarka: Slovenský Don Quijote [Dominik Tatarka: The Slovak Don Quijote]. Bratislava: Veda, 2012.

Bednár, Alfonz. Sklený vrch [The glass hill]. Bratislava: Slovenský spisovateľ, 1954.

Choma, Branislav. “Literatúra a naša doba” [Literature and our era]. Kultúrny život 11, no. 15 (1956): 4

Chorváth, Michal. “Pred plenárkou slovenských spisovateľov” [Before the plenary session of Slovak writers]. Kultúrny život 12, no. 35 (1957): 1–4.

Drug, Štefan. “Premeny umeleckého života po roku 1948” [The changes in an artistic life after 1948]. In Umenie v službách totality 1948–1953 [Art in the service of totalitarianism], edited by Štefan Drug, 17–38. Bratislava: Ústav slovenskej literatúry, 2000.

Ferko, Milan. “Z diskusie na II. sjazde československých spisovateľov” [From the discussion at the second Congress of Czechoslovak Writers]. Kultúrny život 11, no. 19 (1956): 4.

Hečko, František. Drevená dedina [The wooden village]. Bratislava: Slovenský spisovateľ, 1951.

Hečko, František. “To je to, v čom sa rozchádzame” [This is the substance of our split]. Kultúrny život 10, no. 51 (1955): 6.

Hečko, František, and Mária Jančová. Denníky 1938–1960 [Diaries 1938–1960]. Bratislava: Marenčin PT 2011.

Kaplan, Karel. Mocní a bezmocní [Powerful and powerless]. Toronto: Sixty-eight Publishers, 1989.

Kopeček, Michal. Hledání ztraceného smyslu revoluce [Seeking the lost sense of revolution]. Prague: Argo 2009.

Krno, Miloš: “Zastieraním nesprávnych názorov nepomôžeme literature” [We won’t help the literature by concealing the wrong views]. Kultúrny život 12, no. 5 (1957): 6.

Kupec, Ivan. “Na obranu poézie” [In defense of poetry]. Kultúrny život 10, no. 44 (1955): 4–5.

Kupec, Ivan. Nížinami výšinami [Through the lowlands, through the highlands]. Bratislava: Slovenský spisovateľ, 1955.

Lajčiak, Milan. “Diskusný príspevok Milana Lajčiaka” [Contribution of Milan Lajčiak]. Kultúrny život 11 no. 3 (1956): 6.

Lazarová, Katarína. “Z diskusie na II. sjazde československých spisovateľov” [From the discussion at the 2nd Congress of Czechoslovak Writers]. Kultúrny život 11, no. 19 (1956): 3–4.

Leikert, Jozef. Taký bol Ladislav Mňačko [This was Ladislav Mňačko]. Bratislava: Luna, 2008.

Matejovič, Pavel. “Mináč ako záhadný autor?” [Mináč as a mysterious author?]. In Mináč, Vladimír. Zakázané prózy [Forbidden works of prose], 9–18. Bratislava: Kalligram, 2015.

Matejovič, Pavel. Vladimír Mináč a podoby literárneho diskurzu druhej polovice 20. storočia [Vladimír Mináč and the shape of the literary discourse in the second half of the twentieth century]. Bratislava: Kalligram, 2013.

Matuška, Alexander. “O slovenskej poézii” [On Slovak poetry]. Kultúrny život 11, no. 16b (1956): 6–10.

Mináč, Vladimír. “Kríza kritérií” [The crisis of criteria]. Kultúrny život 10, no. 49 (1955): 6-7.

Mňačko, Ladislav. “Z prvých dní diskusie” [From the first days of discussion]. Kultúrny život 11, no. 17 (1956): 11.

Petrík, Vladimír. Hodnoty a podnety [Values and impulses]. Bratislava: Slovenský spisovateľ, 1980.

Rúfus, Milan. Až dozrieme [When we mature]. Bratislava: Slovenský spisovateľ, 1956.

Seifert, Jaroslav. “Z diskusie na II. sjazde československých spisovateľov” [From the discussion at the 2nd Congress of Czechoslovak Writers]. Kultúrny život 11, no. 18 (1956): 3.

Shore, Marci. “Engineering in the Age of Innocence: A Genealogy of Discourse Inside the Czechoslovak Writer´s Union, 1949–67.” East European Politics and Societies 12, no. 3 (1998): 397–441.

Smrek, Ján. Obraz sveta [The image of the world]. Bratislava: Slovenský spisovateľ, 1958.

Štítnický, Ctibor. “Za úspech II. Sjazdu čs. Spisovateľov, za ďalší rozkvet slovenskej literatúry” [For the success of the 2nd Congress of Czechoslovak Writers, for the further development of Slovak literature]. Kultúrny život 11, no. 7 (1956): 3–4.

Štítnický, Ctibor. “Úlohy slovenských spisovateľov po II. sjazde československých spisovateľov” [The tasks of Slovak writers after the 2nd Congress of Czechoslovak Writers]. Kultúrny život 11, no. 22 (1956):1, 3–4.

Tatarka, Dominik. Démon súhlasu [Demon of agreement]. Kultúrny život 11, no. 15, 16, 17 (1956)

Tatarka, Dominik. “Diskusný príspevok Dominika Tatarku” [The discussion contribution of Dominik Tatarka]. Kultúrny život 11, no. 2 (1956): 4.

Tatarka, Dominik. “Slovo k súčasníkom o literature” [Talk to the fellows about literature]. Kultúrny život 10, no. 47 (1955): 6–7.

Tatarka, Dominik. “Malé vysvetlenie” [A little explanation]. Kultúrny život 11, no. 25 (1956): 3.

“Treba posilniť podiel tvorcov pri formovaní nášho života” [The share of creators in the shaping of our life should be strengthened]. Kultúrny život 11, no. 9 (1956): 3.

Uher, Ján: “Problémy a úlohy našej inteligencie” [Problems and tasks of our intelligentsia]. Kultúrny život 11, no. 34 (1956): 9.

“Zo snemovania Sväzu čs. Spisovateľov” [From the session of the Union of Czechoslovak Writers]. Kultúrny život 12, no. 27 (1957): 1, 3, 6.

Florentine Families in Hungary in the First Half of the Fifteenth Century*

Krisztina Arany

National Archives of Hungary

 

This essay, based on a prosopographic database backed by extensive archival research both in Florence and Hungary, offers an overview on the patterns of the presence of Florentine merchants in medieval Hungary. Among the research questions, the Florentine businessmen’s main fields of interest in the kingdom are of utmost importance, because their interests shaped the patterns of their presence in the kingdom. Also, their financial and economic background in Florence significantly influenced the opportunities they had in Hungary. Thus, the forms of cooperation within the closer local and extended international networks within which they moved prove to be revealing with regards to business as it was run in Hungary. The reconstruction of this network also allows us to identify clusters of Florentine business partners residing in Florence who were investing in Hungary by cooperating with their fellow countrymen actively present in the country. I also offer a detailed analysis of the Florentines’ use of credit in Hungary, focusing on both commercial and money credit transactions and the various forms of transactions used to run business ventures there. Finally, I examine Buda’s role as a royal seat and major trade hub from the point of view of the two major foreign trading diasporas hosted in the town, the Italian/Florentine and southern German ethnic groups. I offer a comparative analysis of their interaction and the different patterns of their social ambitions and economic activity in Buda.

Keywords: Florentine merchants, German merchants, Hungary, Buda, King Sigismund of Luxemburg, Florentine Catasto, financial administration, economic relations

 

Introduction

Florentine merchants were present all over medieval Europe, trading in a wide range of goods, providing large loans, and holding key offices in financial administrations in several regions, including Central Europe. In this essay, I offer an overview of the patterns of their presence in medieval Hungary. In particular, I seek to explore the economic and social context provided by the Hungarian Kingdom for a relatively large number of Florentine businessmen working there, whose activity is documented in both Florentine and Hungarian sources.

The study of the activities of Florentine merchants in various geographical regions of medieval Europe looks back on a long historiographic tradition. However, for a number of reasons, in this context, Central Europe has been considered an area of less importance in the international scholarship.1 In Hungary, in contrast, the question of medieval Florentine–Hungarian relations has been a subject of interest in the scholarship from as early as the late nineteenth century. The majority of the works focusing on the topic, however, address predominantly the history of diplomatic relations, leaving out the study of economic affairs partly because of a lack of relevant source material available in Hungary at the time. However, this neglect of the socio-economic aspects of the presence in Hungary of a social cluster characterized by marked international mercantile activity today seems symptomatic of a somewhat misleading approach. Fortunately, this tendency to regard political historical analysis as the priority when addressing the topic has undergone a shift in recent decades, as evidenced by a number of recent economic historical studies.2 These inquiries lay the foundations for more thorough analyses of Florentine–Hungarian economic relations in the Hungarian historical context.

Following in the footsteps of these recent publications on the topic and, at the same time, making extensive use of new possibilities provided by the easier access to information (the result of mass digitization, processing, and the online publication of archival sources), I pursued research on the different aspects of the economic activity and social strategies of the Florentine families working in Hungary, drawing on as diverse an array of sources as possible. My research yielded a set of data, which can be regarded as unusually rich in the Central European context, as it includes written evidence from various Florentine, Hungarian, German, etc. archives. Building also on hitherto unused evidence, I explore new aspects of these businessmen’s strategies in Hungary. I also revisit some of the earlier research questions.3

My methodology is based on a comparative analysis carried out on two levels: a quantitative and qualitative one. The first is a generalized survey of the research questions from the whole data set collected in the form of a prosopographic database. The latter, the so-called micro level, consists of case studies of the activities of a few of the most characteristic and best documented families. This qualitative analysis is meant to function as a control for the results of the quantitative inquiry.4

A Word on the Sources

The prosopographic database primarily contains information from the fond of the Florentine Catasto, the documentation on the new, direct taxation system introduced in Florence in 1427.5 This is a corpus of fiscal documents, and it is homogeneous, unified, and extremely rich in information. Also, the Datini Archives of Prato were worth exploring, because a significant cluster of Prato businessmen were present in Central Europe.6 In addition, I examined the online Regesta Imperii and the digitized archival records and database of the Monasterium, looking in particular for information related to King Sigismund’s Florentine noble retainers (familiares). The data yielded by the Hungarian archival material is much smaller in quantity.7 Nevertheless, I consider these records very important complementary evidence, since the study is also intended as a comparative and complementary survey of the available Florentine fiscal sources and the rather scattered Central European records. The latter records also provide valuable evidence concerning the Florentines’ social and economic integration in this region, something not documented in the Italian archival material at all.8

This dataset, of course, could still be enlarged if further research were feasible in other rich holdings of the Florentine archives, and the project is still far from being complete. At present, the prosopographic database includes altogether 191 persons belonging to 100 Florentine families who worked or invested in Hungary. Out of this sample, 81 persons (43 families) appeared personally in the territory of the Kingdom of Hungary on at least one occasion. The database contains 31 families who had several family members (altogether 94 persons) interested in business in the territory of the kingdom, of whom 77 businessmen personally worked in the region. Where there were several family members of the same generation (basically brothers or cousins), 10 families (17 persons) are listed along with another nine families (31 persons) who stayed and established themselves in the kingdom for at least two generations. The latter two groups, altogether 19 families with 48 persons, are particularly relevant for the analysis of their attitude towards integration within the socio-economic structures they encountered in the Hungarian Kingdom.9

Florentines in the Hungarian Financial Administration

Florentine businessmen engaged in an array of activities in the territory of the Kingdom of Hungary. In all probability, the most important and best documented of these was their participation in the financial administration. In the case of the businessmen who were active in administration, we have a more complete picture of their activity, because the Florentine Catasto’s open account reported on the features of the complementary trading-banking operations, partners, and their social and economic backgrounds, and the majority of the scattered records preserved in Hungary and elsewhere in the region provide precious insights into their tasks as royal officers and noble retainers and their relations with local communities. Finally, these scattered sources sometimes corrected the picture given in the tax declarations on these merchants’ rather poor business profits in the kingdom. Therefore, I first outline and analyze the chronology of the first appearances of these merchants and their main activities in the kingdom.

Their presence was mainly tied to the collection of papal incomes and the lease and exploitation of mines for precious metals and salt until the second half of the fifteenth century. Based on the prosopography, of the 35 Florentines settled for a longer period of time in Hungary, 30 individuals (19 families) worked in the financial administration. The administration of royal revenues was a traditional field of activity for Florentine businessmen working abroad.10 The written records reveal their presence in the financial administration of a number of countries, including England, France, the German lands, and Poland. This kind of activity differed in its possibilities and duties from the work of the collectors of papal revenues.11 Unlike the collectors, who acted as part of an extended international network which also involved the great banking houses, the activity of the officers of the Hungarian royal chambers was based on their relationships as noble retainers to the chief officers, in other words, the counts of the chambers who employed them, and the leading office holders were also bound as servants to the king himself. The formation of royal monopolies required their prolonged presence in the country and their regular interaction with both the royal court and, in the case of second-level officers of the royal monopolies, also with members of the local nobility and urban clusters.12 Thus, for someone to work in the royal financial administration, it was preferable that he was continuously present in person, and it also required greater flexibility and an ability to adapt to changing conditions and increased the probability of someone settling in the chamber centers. The administrative reforms introduced by King Sigismund in 1395–97 set the framework for a mixed system of appointed officers and entrepreneurs, who managed the centralized chamber system, contrary to the previous general lease system of the chambers.13 Most of the Florentine office holders were rather officers and financial experts than entrepreneurs, especially in the case of the salt chambers and the offices of the thirtieth custom of the kingdom.14 This is confirmed by the research on the financial background of officers of Florentine origin. The information gathered is particularly revealing, as it shows that most of them, in fact, did not dispose of larger amounts of capital.15 The importance of the salt chambers is best shown by the keen participation of these businessmen in the proffered positions under the leadership of Filippo di Stefano Scolari.16 This, however, is not reflected in the Florentine Catasto entries, in which little mention is made on shipments of salt, an item generally considered a regular ware traded over long distances. Hungarian sources, on the other hand, include mentions of officers often being paid with salt, which had to be put to market.17

Many of the businessmen in the table of officers of mining and minting chambers also held offices in the salt administration on occasion.18 Sometimes, they were responsible for several offices in the same royal monopoly or even managed different monopolies at the same time. The counts of mining and minting chambers also had to fulfil local jurisdictional tasks. In a few cases, members of the same family acted in one another’s stead in the same office with royal permission, particularly in the case of the offices of salt chambers. Generally speaking, a restricted circle of leading officers of the salt and mining chambers replaced one another in the most important offices from year to year. This mobility also confirms that this replacement represented a shift in the top positions of the financial administration, and not new lease contracts.19 The only striking exceptions are the members of the Manini family, who focused almost exclusively on salt administration. This also limited their mobility, which remained confined geographically to Transylvania and the Maramureş region, where most of the salt mines were found. Transylvania seems distinctive as, at the moment, only one Florentine officer is known to have shifted offices between the salt administration and the mining and minting chambers found in that region.20

Also, the theory of business competition between southern German and Italian, mainly Florentine businessmen in the royal monopoly of precious metal mining at the turn of the fifteenth century (a theory further reinforced by the events between 1402–1403, which led to the expulsion of the Italian inhabitants of Buda and the seizure of their properties) needs to be reconsidered.21 The image of strong conflicts of interests should be revisited, particularly for Buda, in the light of new findings.22 Buda had a considerable Florentine community at the time. Citizenship in the city of Buda was also necessary for the Florentines working for the Buda minting chamber and trading in the first half of the fifteenth century. Furthermore, after 1410 Buda became the center of the royal financial administration (chambers), following King Sigismund’s centralizing reforms. The database also contains information on the appearance of southern Germans with Florentines in the royal administration, in particular on a count of the Buda minting chamber, Michael Nadler, a Buda burgher and judge and a member of the leading urban elite of southern German origin.23 He shared this office with Giovanni Noffri.24 In any case, King Sigismund’s preference to employ Florentine and southern German financial experts was probably mainly motivated by his desire to make the existing administration more efficient and draw as much liquid assets as possible from the royal monopolies.

The Buda Partnerships

The evidence concerning trade practices of Florentines in Hungary is much less representative in Hungarian archival material than the information on financial administration. Thus, the set of data provided in the 1427 Florentine Catasto of three Florentine companies with Buda as their principal seat (for the Carnesecchi–Fronte, the Melanesi, and the Panciatichi firms) is essential to any effort to obtain a more complete image of their activity and also of Buda’s position, at least in a regional context. Due to the array of information and the central position of the three partnerships in the business network of Florentines working in Hungary, social aspects and business forms are also addressed in detail. The members of the partnerships working in Hungary mostly ranked among the merchant-bankers of middling wealth in Florence. Although they worked in a less developed region, they continued involving external capital, as was general for Florentine partnerships. Their start-up and working capital rank them among the average-size partnerships in Florence.

The proportion of Hungarian and Florentine partners and clients and the volume of business could only be addressed in the case of the Carnesecchi–Fronte and Melanesi companies. Among the Florentines listed in their declarations, one most frequently comes across mention of their fellow countrymen working or investing in Buda and in Hungary in the period covered by the records. It is no surprise, of course, that the sums involved in Hungarian business by Florentines were decidedly higher than those sums, mostly debts, listed by the names of Hungarian partners. In fact, comparing the two latter Buda companies, the most striking difference seems to be with respect to the proportion of Hungarian partners and clients with the Florentines. The lists of the Melanesi brothers reveal fewer Hungarians compared to the Carnesecchi–Fronte company. The latter firm lists mainly members of the Hungarian lay aristocracy and prelates among their debtors and creditors, in some cases with larger sums, usually loans (3–400 fl), by their names. The debts and loans of the Melanesis’ Hungarian partners varied in their volume: from small loans up to 100–200 fl. The lists reveal extensive cooperation with some prominent burghers of Buda, among them Michael Nadler (144 fl) and Gregory Ferenci Gubacsi (136 fl), who was interested in cattle trade and also served as the town judge of Pest.25 They also met the needs and accepted various commissions of the guests, diplomats, and members of the royal court.26 Some of the foreigners staying at the court of Sigismund can be identified in the Florentine Catasto lists, including the Genoese Bartolomeo Mosca, legate of the duke of Milan, and Peter, the first duke of Coimbra (1392–1449), son of King John I of Portugal.27

The most important client of the Florentine investors and partnerships, although quite often identified as the worst one in their tax declarations, was King Sigismund himself, though his wife, Queen Barbara, is also mentioned a few times in the lists.28 The constant need for liquidity is well-known and fairly comprehensible in the case of Sigismund of Luxemburg, emperor of the Holy Roman Empire and king of Hungary. On the other hand, the ruler’s support and his commissions were of utmost importance to these international merchant-bankers, though his changing political relations with Florence rendered circumstances unstable for them at times. The direct relation some of them (including representatives of the three stable Buda companies) managed to achieve by entering into the ruler’s service as his noble retainers notably increased the business potential of the region for them. Not surprisingly, agents of the two Buda partnerships were granted royal support for their activity in the kingdom.29 Nevertheless, as was the case among the Florentines in England prior to the bankruptcies, some of Sigismund’s “bankers,” like the Melanesi, faced serious losses against other Florentine investors involved in the Hungarian business, in all probability partly due to delayed or neglected rendering of the loans provided for the king.30 The ruler seems to have compensated them for their losses in some way or another, but their legal situation back home was worsened by these circumstances. The rather negative, somewhat one-sided picture of him as a client in the Florentine Catasto’s open accounts can probably be ascribed to these difficulties.31 However, some Hungarian archival records also preserved mentions of transactions in which the debts owed to the Florentines were settled by King Sigismund.32 According to these records, the payments were usually fulfilled by pledging royal revenues, like that of the yearly gift of royal free towns, to settle smaller loans, or salt was allocated for the settling of larger loans. In other cases possessions, sometimes including towns, were pledged with the restraint of redemption.33

Among the Florentine investors present with their capital in Hungary, a few businessmen of medium or higher wealth were identified.34 Their investments were distinctive, as they were present in Hungary with different investment forms at the same time: a common pattern is that, in addition to investing in the Buda companies, they apparently also employed their own agent in the kingdom.35 As we saw above, the aim may have been to keep the proportion of long term and more liquid investments balanced.

The highest ranking Florentine investor entrepreneurs and partnerships in the Hungarian market disposed of sizeable amounts of capital.36 They were investing in the Florentine companies of Buda, but their investments made in Hungary were not high compared to their funds in other, more developed geographical regions. Hungary attracted them with its stock of precious metals and salt, and may also have served as a secondary market to attenuate investment risks. In case of disputes abroad between Florentine citizens, they could turn for legal decision to the court of the Mercanzia of Florence.37 This was also true for Florentine business partners in connection with their common business ventures in Hungary. The Florentines were also supported by their urban government. In cases involving business problems in foreign lands, Florentine diplomacy moved on behalf of its citizens.38 Of course, when the ruler was the debtor, these efforts were not always effective.

The participation of some medium and small-scale investors, mostly belonging to the kin group or neighborhood of other Florentine businessmen working in the kingdom, is a clear indication of solidarity within the kinship network, a strategy particularly characteristic in Florentine economic context explicitly in the cluster of medium and small-scale entrepreneurs.39

Transaction Types and Volumes

Another question addressed by the research concerns the volume of these transactions, or more precisely, whether the rate of commercial and money credits is also reflected in their volume. Of course, Hungary lacked intensive circulation of money. As was observed in the analysis of the transaction types, commercial credit was more prevalent than money credit.40 Both credit types were risky due to lack of necessary capital on the side of most of the potential local Hungarian or German business partners. Interests, however, were clearly higher than in Italy in the same period, which made such transactions favorable despite the relatively high risks they involved.41 The high number of Florentine crediting partners can mainly be ascribed to the general tendency of diminishing risks not really by contract enforcement, but mainly by making a greater number of lower investments in different companies working in different regions at the same time. Also, the fact that their clients were primarily members of the lay aristocracy or part of the royal court (including the ruler himself) implies that they needed to gather major capital, be it money credit or, in most cases, commercial credit, and thus a broader base of partners and external investors provided the required assets.

The number of transactions carried out between Florentine–Hungarian business partners compared to that of Florentine–Florentine partners participating in business in Hungary confirms at the outset the predominance of the latter (44 transactions versus 237). This can only partly be explained by the motivation of Florentines to hide the transactions that were difficult for the otherwise very thorough Florentine taxation authorities to verify. Clearly, references to Hungarian or local partners in Hungary could be easily avoided if the Florentines chose to do so, blaming differing regional uses of contracting business and the general lack of literacy in trade in Hungary.42 This is somewhat contested by information found in the correspondence of Florentine chamber officers among themselves in Hungary, because here one finds references to debtors and even mention of accountant books.43 However, one must also take into account that the data used by the Florentine fiscal authorities were provided primarily by Florentine investors in Florence whose direct business partners were mainly Florentines working in Hungary and who, therefore, rarely had detailed information concerning their partners’ local business contacts, nor presumably considered it worthwhile to enter these data into the tax returns. Only in a few cases, particularly in the tax returns of Florentine entrepreneurs who employed their own agents in the region, are names of Hungarian persons listed, although usually they are registered jointly as Hungarian debtors.44

To sum up, I identified a rather restricted circle of local partners in the records. Clearly, the number of Florentine partners collaborating to meet the demand for luxury goods among a narrow circle of local clients (mainly members of the lay aristocracy and the ecclesiastical elite) was higher than that of the local partners. Also, transaction types need to be addressed, although again in a rather limited way, because details concerning transactions are sporadic in the source material. Altogether, the information on the Florentines’ crediting activity found in the Florentine tax returns provides hitherto unknown details both on the volume of cargo and the business and banking techniques applied among the Florentines to supply the Hungarian market. The general lack of references to bills of exchange in the Florentine sources (and a similar absence of references in the Hungarian records) and the extremely few banking operations also clearly indicate the limits to international trade and banking, given the lower level of development in the region.45 At this point, however, one must also emphasize Venice’s role as a banking center and seat of branches of Florentine banking houses, which basically covered the transfer of ecclesiastical revenues, a traditional business of Florentines in Europe.46

Florentines and Southern Germans in Buda: A Comparative Analysis

The gradually developing database showed the clear regional geographical preferences of the Florentines in the Kingdom of Hungary and in Central Europe on a wider, regional scale, and thus led to the conclusion that the presence itself of the Florentines and also the shifts in the intensity of their presence in the regional hubs of Central Europe may be of interest and would yet position the Kingdom of Hungary, and especially Buda, within a regional context. For this reason, I examine the main features of Florentine diasporas in the region, with particular emphasis on Buda.47

Italian merchants in Buda aimed to supply the demand for luxury goods for the whole Hungarian market in this period.48 In Buda by the late fourteenth century, however, they confronted a new, fully integrated German elite (mainly coming from Nuremberg, although there were Buda burghers from Basel, Passau, Vienna etc. in lesser numbers), which in the meantime took over the leadership of the town. They replaced the former, fourteenth-century urban elites, which had been rather passive in long-distance trade but were at the same time eager to integrate into the Hungarian nobility in the most important urban offices.49

As shown above, the theory of conflict among German and Italian merchants in the town has been interpreted as the result of business competition. However, in the context of Buda, the ambitions and business targets of the two ethnic groups and the strategies they developed to meet them seem to have been complementary rather than contrasting when it came to trade.

From the information gathered so far, it seems that rather than competing with each other, the Italians and southern Germans of Buda divided the fields of operation among themselves. The Germans’ activity mainly focused on the sale of lower-value wools, even those coming from northern Italy (Verona), whereas trade in luxury goods and prestigious textiles was “left” to the Italian businessmen with major financial potential. The Florentines were able to provide the necessary capital for such trade by involving homeland investors, using well-developed banking techniques, and, finally, taking advantage of the extensive business networks within which they operated. They were also active in providing large loans, not only to the ruler, but to the members of the Hungarian aristocracy and to foreigners visiting the Hungarian royal court, as one sees in the case of the Buda companies.50 The sources on their business activity reveal the use of occasional banking services in the form of assignments and bills of exchange carried out mainly for prominent foreigners sojourning at the court.

Both Germans and Italians in Buda were interested in the operations related to royal monopolies.51 Here too, the sources indicate cooperation among members of the two ethnic groups in Buda. The Italians still focused closely on the business of the sale of copper and salt and on the lease of the Slavonian thirtieth customs. All the officials operating in this field were noble retainers, that is, servants of the king, assessed usually as a rather medieval feature of the financial administration,52 which implied a personal relationship to King Sigismund of Luxemburg. Out of 12 noble retainers of Florentine origin, six certainly had Buda citizenship as well.

According to the Buda Town Law (Ofner Stadtrecht), retail trade or shop keeping in the territory of the town was only granted to the citizens of Buda, who also paid a tax for the right to sell merchandize.53 This norm, which most probably existed in earlier decades, made urban citizenship essential for wealthy foreign merchants from the late fourteenth century onwards. Therefore, most of both the Italians and southern Germans in Buda acquired citizenship of the town. As citizenship required possession of real estate, many of them also had houses, gardens, vineyards etc. within the town walls. Looking only at the Florentines, in the 1420s, at least 30 businessmen (belonging to 25 families) were Buda citizens based on the prosopographic database.

For the German elite of Buda, however, real estate may also have played a notable role in trade transactions. As these families frequently lacked the necessary capital for long distance trade in wool or cattle, these possessions may have also served as mortgage items for business operations. Although the medieval archives of Buda were destroyed, the existence of so-called Verbotbücher seems to be plausible based on analogy with other towns in the region engaged in the same sort of trade.54 Such operations were, in fact, inserted in the Verbotbücher of Pozsony (Pressburg, today Bratislava, Slovakia) and Vienna in order to cover the potential losses of the investors.55

The Germans tended to integrate into the local urban community. However, even their integration seems to be somewhat odd, as they were not keen to marry into Buda’s patrician families, whether they were from the former German elites of Regensburg origin or the developing Hungarian elites. In fact, the Germans preferred to establish family ties with members of the German elite in other Hungarian towns, particularly those involved in their business network, such as Pozsony, Vienna, Crakow, and especially Nuremberg, their hometown. In this respect, the southern Germans’ presence and social network has a marked regional character in Central Europe.56 As opposed to their marriage policies, the members of the southern German elite in Buda were very active politically. In fact, they were present in the town council and almost “monopolized” the office of the town judge in 1403–39.57

In the case of the southern Germans, not much changed over the course of the fifteenth century: their presence in Buda and in the economic life of the kingdom was continuous, with a greater number of newcomers observed in the 1470s. Later, the southern German trade houses, such as the Welser and Fugger from Augsburg, also established permanent agents in Buda.58 These German firms with their substantial capital finally set up real competition for the Italians, first in the field of tithe collection, which they took over in the Habsburg territories from the Italians,59 and then in Hungary particularly in the management of mining chambers.60 The Germans of Buda also provided supplies for the royal court on some occasions, although still at a lower volume compared to the Italians according to András Kubinyi, who analyzed the average value of their shipments in the accountancy of the royal court.61

Italians, in contrast, even if they were wealthy merchants or their established agents living and working in Buda for decades, rarely married into the local urban community. Most of them had left their families in their homeland and did not settle permanently in Buda.62 Accordingly, they did not directly participate in Buda’s urban government either, but tried to maintain good relations with the leading German and, later, also Hungarian merchants of the town.63 In the few cases of marriage alliances into local families, they mainly chose spouses from the nobility.

In any case, Buda seems to be the only Central European center which was targeted by flows of both the southern German and Florentine merchant diasporas from the last decades of the fourteenth century and throughout the fifteenth century. Therefore Buda can be perceived as a kind of borderline regional urban center, where direct contacts and on occasion even cooperation were documented between these two foreign merchant communities, which dominated regional trade and which did not appear to have had direct contacts elsewhere, except for Venice.64

Although Venice with its Fondaco dei Tedeschi and large Florentine community could and did function as such a trade hub, the Serenissima, as an intermediary center for long-distance trade, does not seem to have been considered sufficient to seek, find, and finally cover the increasing demands and possibilities provided by Central Europe during the reign of King Sigismund. One must also consider the city’s serious conflicts of interest with King Sigismund. Buda, in my understanding, must have benefited greatly from this controversy. The Florentine diaspora in Venice (the only institutionalized Florentine colony in the region), therefore, played a crucial role in promoting the area’s business possibilities, and the Venetian branches of Florentine banking houses provided the necessary banking facilities for trade in the region.65

Florentines in Central Europe

At this point of my inquiry, I look at the social economic patterns of the presence of Florentines in Central Europe in a relatively broad time framework, lasting from the early fourteenth century up to the end of sixteenth century. Except for Venice, no institutionalized Florentine colony seems to have been established in the region in the period in question, and the records indicate very few cases of exogamy or integration.66 Also, geographically Central Europe is considered here for the purposes of this investigation in a rather broad sense to include Ragusa (today Dubrovnik, Croatia) (which during most of fifteenth century was under nominal Hungarian overlordship and which had a significant Florentine community within its walls) to the south, Poland (primarily Crakow) to the north, and Wrocław, Vienna, and Nuremberg to the west.67

Ethnic provenance appearing in urban toponyms, like the vicus latinorum, platea italicorum etc., was present in several towns, although the case of Buda shows that this alone must not be overestimated as a crucial indicator for ethnic clustering of Italians and particularly Florentines in late medieval urban centers of Central Europe.68 However, it does suggest a relatively dense presence of Italians in the given urban environment in a certain (probably early) phase of urban evolution. Therefore, other factors, like use of language, political representation in urban community etc., must be evaluated as possible indicators of a more precise assessment of the possible presence of Florentine or Italian diasporas in the regional centers.

In contrast with Buda, the Latin community of Zagreb (also an important hub for Italians along the main inland trade route), which had formed earlier (beginning at the end of the thirteenth century) and was made up primarily of Italians (mainly Florentines) disposing of lesser assets (and including many artisans), seems to have been clearly identified as an ethnic cluster within the urban community.69 The Latins of Zagreb also aspired to acquire and acquired urban political representation as the town’s Latin nation in a peak period, which lasted from the last decades of the fourteenth century to the first half of the fifteenth century. This may be interpreted as a conscious endeavor on their part to participate and also to integrate into the local urban community, which is further confirmed by the higher number of marriage alliances with local families from other ethnic clusters of the town. Of course, limits to a comparative analysis again are set by the available sources, which differ both in their quality and quantity from place to place.

The notion of the Florentine diaspora as a diaspora’s diaspora based on geographical distance (Buda–Zagreb–and ultimately Venice) is an intriguing idea. However, one must take into consideration that in both Venice and Buda rather large-scale and medium-scale Florentine merchants were present, whereas Zagreb’s Italian community hosted mainly Florentines of a lower social and economic standing, more keen on integrating, particularly compared to the Florentines of Buda. Of course, there was a number of Florentines who figured in both or all three of these urban centers. Thus, their mobility can also be understood as a distinctive feature of a diaspora within a diaspora, but this question needs further research.70

Another point in favor of Buda’s rise as a regional trade hub can be ascribed to King Sigismund and the royal court’s definite establishment in the city. When addressing the factor played by the royal court in Buda, one must also emphasize Sigismund of Luxemburg’s rise to the position of emperor. Thus, Buda hosted the imperial aula from time to time and became a European political-representational center and thus must have generated an increasing presence of Florentines in the city. Neither Vienna, nor Prague, nor any other town in Central Europe assumed a position of such prominence in the fifteenth century. Buda also disposed of an international trade deposit and market hall, a Nyder lag as it was called in the Ofner Stadtrecht.71 The town’s staple rights, however, were from time to time weakened by similar privileges acquired by neighboring towns along the main trade routes in the early fifteenth century. The information on the three Florentine partnerships with seats in Buda in the 1420s (analyzed at length in the previous paragraphs) makes Buda the only Central European trading center with such an intensive Florentine presence in this period. The next town to host a Florentine company was Nuremberg (the earliest reference to this dates back to 1512).72 The presence of Florentine partnerships in Crakow also dates to the sixteenth century.73

Social and Economic Strategies of Florentine Families Working in Hungary

Eight families (Panciatichi, Buondelmonti, Manini, Attavanti, Melanesi, del Rosso, Lamberteschi, Capponi) were selected for the qualitative survey for a number of reasons. First, they represent a cross-section of Florentine merchant families from the perspectives of wealth and social standing.74 The Panciatichi family was taxed as one of the wealthiest families in Florence at the time. The Buondelmonti family had a high social status but a somewhat weakened financial situation at the time of their stay in Hungary. The Manini and Attavanti families were the last families recorded in the Florentine Catasto of 1427 as miserabile, with no taxable wealth at all. I focused on the role that the closer and extended family played in the activity of the Florentine businessmen working in the Kingdom of Hungary in the first half of the fifteenth century. I also investigated the extent and characteristics of cooperation among the members of a family belonging to both the same and consecutive generations, and I compared these features to the business organization of Florentine merchant families operating in their homeland.

In families involved in trade and credit activity in the kingdom, very often members of two generations cooperated. The father was the commissioner and owner of the goods, while the sons played the roles of agents, travelers, or resident agents. This was true in the case of both the Lamberteschi and the Panciatichi families. In the case of the Panciatichi partnership, the extended family was represented by Filippo di Simone Capponi, Giovanni di Bartolomeo’s Panciatichi’s brother-in-law, who worked as a salaried agent settled in Buda.75 Another example of members of a Florentine extended family jointly running a company in Hungary is provided by the Melanesi brothers, Simone and Tommaso. They resided in Buda, but were in partnership with their uncle, Filippo di Filippo, who remained in Florence. They also involved other members of the wider lineage, men like Melanese di Ridolfo Melanesi, in their business operations.76

Altogether, the solidarity of the Florentine families was realized in different ways in Hungary compared to their homeland, where business competition was much more intense. As the case of the Attavanti family shows, the solidarity and cooperation of the family found manifestation in several different ways. The separate fiscal declarations of the brothers Cristofano and Leonardo suggest two separate households. However, the fact that the younger children and the widowed mother also moved to Hungary suggests that probably both brothers supported them, and that the two separate fiscal households still formed an integral economic unit.77

The examples cited above show brothers staying together in a common household with their families and apparently running their business together and sharing the profit, the financial potential, and also the risks, regardless of their actual financial situation. This pattern is very different from the practice of merchant families operating in Florence. The few cases of integration, on the other hand, show full adaptation to the local community, be it urban or noble. In cases of integration into the nobility, there clearly was a tendency to give up previous activities, linked mainly to financial administration.

In the very few cases of ennoblement, the relationships of businessmen to the king and the types of services rendered to King Sigismund were crucial.78 In the case of families acquiring nobility and estates, their joint possession also secured the perpetuation of the estate for subsequent generations of the kin group, even if one of the ennobled branches became extinct. The case study proposed on Niccoló Buondelmonti’s settlement and integration into the Hungarian landed aristocracy in 1440, long after Scolari’s death and also after King Sigismund’s death, proves that the Buondelmonti kin group’s success cannot be ascribed solely to their family ties to the Scolaris. The Hungarian branch of the Florentine Buondelmonti family, however, became extinct after two generations, but the large estates in their possession from the Lévai and Treutel families were subject to long legal debates between the son of Peter Lévai Cseh on one side and Paul Herceg of Szekcső on the other.79

On the basis of our present knowledge, the majority of Florentines who settled in the Kingdom of Hungary lived in urban society. Leaving aside Buda for the moment, other towns can be identified as permanent or temporary residences of Florentines in the first half of the fifteenth century, among them mostly mining, minting, and trade centers, particularly Transylvanian Saxon towns. The Transylvanian towns, particularly the Saxon towns, which enjoyed notable autonomy from the late fourteenth century onwards, seem to have offered a particularly favorable context for urban integration for Florentines in Hungary.80 Thus, a few of them established themselves and integrated into local families of local leading elites through marriage in the Saxon communities of these towns. They had houses and estates in the most important local towns, and in a few cases we can trace the activity of their descendants in the area through the fifteenth century.81 Two of them, Cristoforo Italicus and Zanobi de Florentia, counts of the salt chambers at Vízakna (today Ocna Sibiului, Romania), were selected as examples of successful integration into urban community in Hungary. This time, the Hungarian source material served as the point of departure.82 These records at least revealed that they were brothers, and they also mentioned another count of chamber called Pero de Rassys.83 The identification of the family they belonged to was not possible exclusively on the basis of the Hungarian sources. Fortunately, the Florentine Catasto records provided necessary information to retrace them in Florence as members of the Del Rosso family. Their situation is somewhat similar to that of other Florentine families working in financial administration: more family members worked in Hungary due to the family’s weakened economic situation back in Florence according to their tax return (which was submitted collectively), except for one brother, Guido. The del Rosso family ranked among the guild consular families in Florence. Rosso, the father, held consular office nine times, and was interested in building constructions in the Tuscan city and producing kiln products.84 After his death, some of the altogether seven brothers sought business activity abroad, like Francesco di Rosso di Piero Rosso, the householder and eldest brother of all, who went to Rome and later to Naples. Another brother, whose name is not specified, was in Hungary working in the service of other Florentines in 1427.85 Cristoforo appears in the Hungarian sources only in 1438 for the first time, as count of the chamber of salt of Vízakna in the service of Matko Tallóci.86 In the Florentine records he is first mentioned to be in Hungary only in 1442.87 Among Cristoforo’s brothers, Zanobi appears in Hungary for the first time in 1442, while the earliest mention of his brother Giovanni having been in the city dates to 1469.88 Back in Florence, he also held the office of Prior twice (1442, 1456), and he served as guild consul for six terms.89 His apparent ambition to integrate notwithstanding, Cristoforo maintained contact with Florence to an extent that he even submitted his tax declaration in 1457, at least thirty years after his arrival to Hungary.90 The same seems to be confirmed by the fact that he and his brothers kept a few possessions in Florence until at least 1480. Cristoforo’s business interests were not restricted to his obligations of managing royal monopolies. In fact, he also had business activity in Venice, but he put it as a loss. His son Paul (Pagolo) appears in the family tree drawn by Goldthwaite.91 Zanobi’s wife Anna was daughter to Nicholas son of Ivan of Rakovica, a nobleman and estate owner in the neighborhood of Nagyszeben (Hermannstadt, today Sibiu, Romania). The family, known also as Zanobii in Nagyszeben, definitely settled in the city and was the forebear of the prominent Proll family, among them the renowned Nicholas Proll of Nagyszeben, who controlled the Transylvanian mint and in the 1490s also the salt chambers.92

Excursion: An Unrevealed Aspect of Florentine–Hungarian Economic Relations

Finally, my research on Florentine–Hungarian economic relations quite unexpectedly also shed light on the migration of skilled and unskilled craftsmen from Central Europe towards the Tuscan city. This was surprising, since it is only rarely documented and not in much detail.93 From the very isolated information, however, vague evidence of solidarity and cooperation among the Hungarians in Florence can be assumed, although it never matched the extent of solidarity among Germans, with its sophisticated organizational forms around lay confraternities. In fact, in a subsequent period, apparently the German speaking immigrants coming from Hungary tended to join the institutions of Germans in the Tuscan city, and this leads to the conclusion that German speaking persons from Hungary may be hidden among the householders identified as Germans in the Florentine Catasto of 1427. This phenomenon also led to another, completely new point, namely the question of levels of self-identification of members of the multiethnic and multilingual communities of Central Europe. This question is particularly interesting considering the foreign environment in which these Central European immigrants defined themselves, because this foreign context lacked an important aspect, namely the points of reference which the homeland multiethnic community provided to establish clearly the position of the people in the local context. Thus, in Florence these immigrants used a whole range of levels of self-identification, from the wider-closer geographical provenance, be it the home town or the wider geo-political unit, namely the Kingdom of Hungary, to ethnic affiliation and spoken language. The identification sometimes seems vague, although the sparse related information in the Florentine Catasto shows the prevailing use of geographical affiliation, whereas in other, later cases found in recent scholarly literature it seems to be clearly driven by conscious use of possibilities provided by Florentine urban organizations for foreign artisans. This may not be closely connected to the main research question, but it could be perceived as a starting point for a future inquiry to identify the main features of the other extremes (be it both the destination and the social cluster involved in it) of diasporas in late medieval Europe.

Conclusion

Altogether, both the quantitative data set and the case studies confirm that a large number of Florentines targeted the Kingdom of Hungary during the reign of King and Emperor Sigismund of Luxemburg. Most of them were keen on working in the royal financial administration, as their fellow countrymen did in other regions of contemporary Europe. Sigismund’s constant need for liquid assets certainly played a crucial role in the decision to employ them. However, when taking a closer look at these Florentines’ financial backgrounds in Florence, one finds that most of them did not belong to the social cluster of the wealthiest merchants in the Tuscan city. Some of them disposed of rather humble financial assets but still operated within a large and efficient business network created by the Florentines in general. Thus, they could involve external investors to gather larger amounts of capital for their transactions when needed. Also, the Florentine officers’ vast knowledge of financial operations, their ability to adapt to various local socio-economic contexts, and their mobility rendered their services useful to the ruler, who himself gradually fulfilled his high aspirations by finally being crowned Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire in 1433.

Florentine archival records also confirm the existence of extensive trading activity on the part of Florentines in Hungary, at least in the case of some better documented Florentine officers working for the Buda companies. The information on the volume and forms of their activity in Hungary is not preserved in Hungarian documents. Due to the comparative backwardness of the region, other classical fields of operation, particularly banking, were not present among their operations in Hungary. The Venice branches of Florentine banking houses mostly covered such transactions for the region. However, three major trading partnerships formed by middle and even large-scale merchants were active in Buda in the 1420s, a presence not yet verified for any other urban center of Central Europe. Also, the members of companies had close ties to the royal and even imperial court of the ruler, whose court rendered Buda an urban center of utmost importance. In fact, in one case the company’s apparent bankruptcy is clearly linked to their loans provided to the ruler, and this is a clear sign of the higher business risks in the region. The Florentines, however, were compensated with higher interest rates for the risks they ran in Hungary. When considering the major forms of loans, commercial credit prevailed, and during the analysis of business partners of Florentines related to transactions in Hungary, the number of Florentine partners is higher, whereas the circle of local partners is much more limited. This suggests business operations involving several Florentine investors with a small number of Hungarian clients.

Buda’s two major trading diasporas, the southern German and the Italian, cooperated in the royal financial administration, and when it came to trade they met differing demands, the Italians mainly shipping luxury goods, while southern Germans merchandized lower-value cloth, primarily for urban customers. This difference in the fields of interest shaped their relations with the local urban community and their ways of integration, but their presence rendered Buda the only Central European urban center that functioned as a long-term direct meeting point for the two trading ethnic clusters most active in long-distance trade in the region. Finally, the migration of artisans from the Kingdom of Hungary to Florence reveals unexpected aspects of migration of humbler clusters, like the complexity of layers of self-identification and identification of artisans coming from the colorful Central European region to the Tuscan city.

 

Bibliography

Archival sources

Archivio di Stato di Firenze (=ASF, The State Archives of Florence)

Archivio del Catasto.

Online Catasto of 1427. Version 1.3. Edited by David Herlihy, Christiane Klapisch-Zuber, R. Burr Litchfield, and Anthony Molho. [Machine readable data file based on D. Herlihy and C. Klapisch-Zuber, Census and Property Survey of Florentine Domains in the Province of Tuscany, 1427–1480.] Florentine Renaissance Resources/STG: Brown University, Providence, R.I, 2002. Accessed May 15, 2016. www.stg.brown.edu/projects/Catasto/overview.

 

Archivio di Stato di Prato

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Accessed May 15, 2016. http://datini.archiviodistato.prato.it/www/query.html.

 

Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára (=MNL OL, Hungarian National Archives)

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Diplomatikai Fényképtár (=DF, Photograph Collection of Charters).

The digitized version of the Medieval Charter Collection is accessible online. Accessed June 15, 2016. http://archives.hungaricana.hu/hu/charters/.

 

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Arany, Krisztina. “Apák, fiúk, fivérek, üzleti partnerek: A XV. század első felében Magyarországon dolgozó firenzei családok együttműködésének formái” [Fathers, sons, brothers, business partners: The forms of cooperation among the Florentine families working in Hungary in the first half of the fifteenth century]. Fons (Forráskutatás és Történeti Segédtudományok) 16, no. 2 (2009): 157–91.

Arany, Krisztina. “Buda mint uralkodói székhely és távolsági kereskedelmi központ a 15. században, a firenzei és dél-német üzletemberek tevékenységének tükrében” [Buda as the seat of the ruler and a long-distance trade center in the fifteenth century, in the light of the activities of Florentine and southern German businessmen]. Urbs: Magyar Várostörténeti Évkönyv 7 (2012): 153–70.

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Arany, Krisztina. “Magyarországi hitelezésre vonatkozó adatok az 1427. évi firenzei Catastóban” [Crediting activity of Florentines in Hungary as reflected in the Florentine Catasto of 1427]. In Tiszteletkör: Történeti tanulmányok Draskóczy István egyetemi tanár 60. születésnapjára [Lap of honor: Essays in honor of sixty-year-old István Draskóczy], edited by András Vadas, Gábor Mikó, and Bence Péterfi, 165–77. Budapest: ELTE Eötvös Kiadó, 2012.

Arany, Krisztina. “Success and Failure – Two Florentine Merchant Families in Buda during the Reign of King Sigismund (1387–1437).” In Annual of Medieval Studies at CEU, edited by Katalin Szende and Judith A. Rasson, 101–23. Budapest: Central European University Press, 2006.

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* This work was made possible with the support of the Croatian Science Foundation under project number 6547 (Sources, Manuals and Studies for Croatian History from the Middle Ages to the End of the Long Nineteenth Century; principal investigator: Damir Karbić).

Florentines’ Trade in the Kingdom of Hungary in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries: Trade Routes, Networks, and Commodities*

Katalin Prajda

Contract Researcher, University of Chicago, Neubauer Collegium for Culture and Society

 

The article proposes to analyze some general characteristics of Florentine merchants’ trade in the Kingdom of Hungary in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries on the basis of written sources housed predominantly by various Italian archives. It opens with a new evaluation of the importance of Florentine merchants in long-distance trade by examining examples of the organizational framework of their enterprises in the town of Buda during the reign of Sigismund of Luxembourg (1387–1437). It also looks at the well-known cases of the families that were engaged in trade in Hungary, beginning with the period of Louis I (1342–82) and ending with the reign of Matthias Corvinus (1458–90). The second subchapter concentrates on the commodities transported by Florentines between the two states by describing their nature and their quantitative and qualitative features mentioned in the documents. Among the commercial goods, the article considers the import and export of metals like gold, silver, and copper, as well as Florentine silk and wool. It also mentions exotic animals and spices transported from extra-European territories. The third part of the article offers a reconstruction of the outreach of the Florentine network operating in Hungary, with particular consideration of its most important markets for raw materials and luxury goods. The fourth subchapter discusses the commercial routes used by Florentines when transporting their goods between the towns of Buda and Florence, emphasizing the importance of Venice as a major trading hub along the route. The conclusion puts the Florentines’ trade in Hungary into a broader picture of international trade, and it draws connections between the development of the Florentine silk industry, for which the city became famous, and the marketing of its finished products in Hungary.

Keywords: Buda, Florence, Hungary, Venice, commercial routes, merchant, textiles, silk, precious metals, merchant company, trade, network

 

The Florentine Community

Studies have already traced the existence of a Florentine trading community in the Kingdom of Hungary as far back as the reign of Louis I.1 Since Hungarian sources regarding commerce are very fragmented in nature, researchers mostly rely on Florentine documents, which started to be produced from the late fourteenth century. Recently found new written evidence have revealed the existence of a Latin consul in the town of Buda as early as 1392. The consul acted as a judge in cases involving the Florentines, and he was also the person in charge of mediating between the merchants and local Hungarian society. They occasionally appear also as royal relators when Florentine merchants were involved in court cases in Hungary. The Latin consulate in Buda, one of the earliest such organizations including Florentine merchants outside their homeland, functioned throughout the entire period of Sigismund of Luxemburg’s reign in Hungary (1387–1437).2 The first consul known by name, Giovanni Saracino, an important member of the royal administration, was of Paduan origins. Later, in the early 1430s, a Florentine (also a royal officer) occupied the position. In his absence, which might only have lasted for a relatively short period of time, a Sienese was elected to serve as deputy Latin judge.3 This information suggests that the judge or consul, indeed, was common for all merchants from the Italian Peninsula. No indications have been found so far suggesting that this form of organization survived even in the subsequent period. One can only suspect that, because of the general decadence of the relations between Florence and Hungary on the state level, Florentine merchants may have lost their representation in the region.4 Furthermore, King Sigismund’s order, issued sometime before 1428, authorized the town judge of Buda to act in cases involving foreign merchants who were trading within the territory of the town.5 This may have considerably weakened the role played by the Latin consul in the resolution of business conflicts between local and Florentine merchants.

Given the nature of the sources, we have no exact statistics regarding the population of the Florentine trading community in Buda or in other parts of the kingdom. All we know is that the community was well-connected to Florence and other European commercial centers. There must also have been a continuous flow of Florentine merchants between the two states. The resident Florentine community in Buda during the reign of Sigismund was seemingly more numerous than in the preceding and subsequent periods, including the reign of Matthias Corvinus (1458–90). The vivid life of the trading community in the Kingdom of Hungary probably came to an end when Sigismund’s attitude toward Florentine merchants changed, a shift that culminated in 1432 by his order to arrest all of them on Hungarian territory.6

The importance of the Florentine community is also illustrated by the fact that at least twelve Florentine trading companies were established in Buda during the first three decades of the fifteenth century. As far as we can tell, they were medium-size companies, mainly set up for the export of Florentine textiles to Hungary in exchange for precious metals from the local mines. The senior partners of these companies were important actors in long-distance Florentine trade, and they played a significant role in the textile industry of their homeland. Some of them were also leading investors in the Florentine silk industry, both in terms of domestic production and marketing abroad. In addition to the resident Florentine companies and autonomous partnerships, other merchants relied on their business networks or on independent agents when marketing their textiles in Hungary. The “accomanda” system, involving limited liability contracts, was also used in dealings between Buda-based companies and silk companies or silk firms and local agents.7

Meanwhile, the Florentine community during the reign of Louis I (1342–82), and even until about the turn of the century, was characterized by the strong presence of a small business group constituted by the business partners of Vieri di Cambio de’Medici and the Panciatichi family, the earliest documented companies operating in the region. By the first years of the fifteenth century, however, the business circle of the Scolari family had acquired a position of dominance in the Hungarian–Florentine long-distance trade. The years immediately following the deaths of the Scolari brothers in 1426 saw a power play between the Scolari nephews and the Bardi brothers, old familiares of the Scolari. Following these conflicts, the leading position of the Bardi brothers as well as other internal dynamics in Florence led probably to the reorganization of key positions in the royal administration and the network of long-distance trade.

1434 witnessed considerable changes in the history of Florence as well with the rise of the new regime headed by Cosimo de’Medici. Several families, which once had been important in long-distance trade with Hungary, lost their political influence and were exiled. Thus, their ties to domestic and international commercial networks loosened considerably. Among them, we find the Albizzi, Guadagni, and Infangati families, old friends, close relatives, and once political allies to the Scolari brothers.8

In the 1430s, this may have given rise to a new influx of Southern German businessmen to the royal administration and trade network in Hungary. Already in the 1390s, local Germans in Buda cooperated with Florentine and Venetian businessmen who sought to sell their goods in the city. Michael Nadler, a respected citizen of Buda of Southern German origins, acted as a dealer in Venetian merchants’ silk textiles with his partners, including his father, Michael Nadler senior.9 In 1427, he was among the debtors of the Melanesi di Buda, most probably because he was selling textiles for them as well.10 In the same year, he also acted as judge for the city.11 Nadler, who worked in the royal administration of mines, may have had other ties to the Melanesi, since Tommaso di Piero, a member of Sigismund’s familia and a citizen of Buda, managed copper mines in the kingdom. Nadler also established close business ties with the more influential Leonardo di Nofri de’Bardi, with whom he held royal offices.12 In the early 1430s, Leonardo and his brother Giovanni, both of whom were already Hungarian noblemen, figured in the role of Latin consul. In other words, they served as judges for the Florentines residing in Buda.13 In 1431, Leonardo Bardi was staying in Nuremberg, probably for a longer period of time, which may suggest that he actually had begun to cooperate in some way with local German merchants.14 Leonardo was probably away from Buda frequently for business purposes; another source mentions that he was staying in Bohemia for a certain time. The involvement of the Melanesi and the Bardi brothers, key figures of the local Florentine community, in business activity with some German businessmen, therefore, must have had long-term consequences.

Following King Sigismund’s death in 1437, very few of the Florentine families which had had an interest in the region as early as the turn of the fifteenth century continued to work in long-distance trade in the kingdom. Among them, we find members of the Del Bene and the Zati families, who thanks to their contacts in Buda, Florence and Venice managed to maintain their economic activity until around the middle of the fifteenth century.15 During the reign of Matthias Corvinus, however, the allies of the Medici dominated the Florentine-Hungarian relations; among them, members of the Attavanti and Gondi families became important distributors of Florentine goods in the royal court.16

 

Commodities

From its outset, the Florentine trading community in the Kingdom of Hungary was built upon the export of wool textiles from Florence and the import of precious metal coins/bullions to the Italian Peninsula. By the end of the fourteenth century, by which time some investors had begun to produce high quality silk fabrics in the city for the international market, Florentine merchants had already started to export silks to Hungary, among other places. Along with these goods, Florentines were occasionally involved in the administration and probably also in the marketing of salt, which was extracted in various parts of Hungary.17 Furthermore, exotic spices and animals are also mentioned in the sources. Few of the resident companies in Buda provided banking services, but a considerable share of money exchange and safe-keeping, as well as the purchase of trade insurance, may well have gone through the Florentine companies that operated in Florence and Venice. From this point of view, the Medici of Venice seem to have been especially important. Since, to our best knowledge, account books of Florentine companies based in Buda have not survived, we have only fragmented information at our disposal regarding the quantity and the quality of these commercial goods, as well as their transportation and marketing.

By the mid-fourteenth century, Florence was already considered an important producer of wool textiles; her goods had already reached the international market. There were two general types of wool textiles manufactured in the city: the high-quality San Martino cloths and the lower-quality Garbo cloths. The areas in which they were brought to market were decisively different. The high-quality cloths were sold mostly in the Italian and Iberian Peninsula, while the low-quality cloths were sold in the Levant.18 Though differences between the two were considerable, probably due to the absence of corresponding account books, Florentine sources do not refer to the type of wool textiles transported to the Kingdom of Hungary. They were generally labelled panni, a term which clearly distinguished them in the Florentine dialect from the silk drappi. Given the considerable distance between Florence and Buda, one can presume that profit-oriented Florentine businessmen sold mainly high-quality San Martino cloth in Hungary. This hypothesis is also supported by the activity of some of the merchant-entrepreneurs who had an interest in selling their goods in Hungary. In the fourteenth century, the Del Bene were among the most important entrepreneurs in the wool industry, and members of the family had already developed business connections in Hungary during the reign of Louis I.19 Similarly, around the turn of the fifteenth century, the Borghini brothers ran a wool workshop in the convent of San Martino, and they appear later as suppliers of textiles in the royal court. At that time, the Lamberteschi were also considered important producers of high-quality wool; they imported raw material directly from Flanders and sold some of their finished cloth in Hungary. They distributed wool textiles in Hungary, also by relying on other companies, like the Melanesi of Buda.20 The Melanesi brothers seem often to have acted as dealers in textiles produced by the workshops of other Florentine businessmen; they sold both finished and semi-finished cloth in Hungary.21 In most cases, the provenience of wool textiles sold in Hungary is not mentioned in the sources. Probably the earliest information on Florentine wool sold in Hungary dates back to 1387, when Gabriello di messer Bartolomeo Panciatichi sent four and a half pieces of textile to Zagreb.22

In addition to wool textiles, which definitely had a vast circle of customers, silk textiles became the other important item of Florentine trade. Richard Goldthwaite contends that silk textile was the first product manufactured in Florence which Florentine merchants sold all over Western Europe. The local silk industry underwent the earliest phase of its evolution in the first part of the fourteenth century.23 By that time, in addition to Lucca (the first major site of silk production in Italy), Bologna, Genoa, and Venice also emerged as centers of silk production. However, in the case of Florence, the manufacturers in the city only started to produce silk fabrics for the international market in the late fourteenth century. The first investments of considerable size into the sector arrived in the 1380s when maybe a handful of entrepreneurs and silk manufacturers began to invest their financial and human capital into the foundation of silk manufacturing companies.24

This important moment in the history of the domestic silk industry coincides with the earliest report about silk fabrics being sent to the royal court in Hungary. In 1376, the politician and wool manufacturer Giovanni di Amerigo del Bene advised the government to have the Florentine ambassadors heading to Hungary carry as gifts three pieces of velvet and three pieces of silk, decorated with gold.25 Though Giovanni did not specify whether or not the silk textiles should be domestic products, one can reasonably hypothesize that the gifts were intended to represent the city and therefore the domestic industry. In that particular case, however, we have no information at our disposal concerning whether these diplomatic gifts actually reached the royal court. Ten years later, in 1386, another document informs us that the count palatine of Hungary had purchased silk textiles of considerable value from a Florentine company.26 The provenience, even in this source, was unspecified. It might just as well have been Florence as Venice. However, both of the documents indicate the rise of a certain demand for silk textiles in the various courts of the kingdom.

It seems logical to assume that as soon as the volume and quality of domestic production permitted, Florentine silk companies, well-connected to the local Florentine network, tried to sell their products in Hungary too. The silk manufacturers who sent silk fabrics to the region included several pioneer businessmen of the domestic industry, such as the workshop-company of Bartolomeo di Luca Rinieri and Antonio di Giovanni Panciatichi and the workshop of Parente di Michele di ser Parente. They probably marketed their textiles in Hungary, using other Florentine companies operating in the region as agents. These silk fabrics may have consisted, for example, of red damask, the so-called “chermusi.”27 Others, like the merchant Bernardo di Sandro Talani, who maintained a very diverse business profile, purchased silk textiles in Florence in order to sell them in Hungary.28

The triple-rooted Zati family, whose members developed business and social ties simultaneously in Florence, Venice, and Hungary, had an important interest in the marketing of silk in the kingdom.29 In the 1430s, they traded in silver brocades, among other things.30 Also, the company of Zanobi Panciatichi exported silk fabrics of various colors to Hungary; velvet of black, green, blue, and red colors, green and brown silk and damask cloths.31 But they also sold “zetani,” i.e. very heavy silk fabrics, using the Melanesi of Buda as dealers.32

The Melanesi seem to have maintained a vast circle of suppliers among the producers of silk and wool textiles who used their services to bring their fabrics to market in Buda.33 The Melanesi brothers themselves also invested capital into a silk manufacturing company with the Davizi and the Corsi brothers, whose families had been engaged in silk production since the 1380s.34 Presumably, some of the silk fabrics sold by the Melanesi in Buda should have come directly from their own workshop.35 The same workshop might have provided silk fabrics for the funeral of Andrea and Matteo Scolari in Hungary, which were displayed as flags and other textiles of liturgical use during the ceremony.36

One of the leading figures of the Florentine silk industry, Tommaso di Domenico Borghini, also sold the products of his own workshop-warehouse in Hungary using his own merchant company, which he had set up with Matteo di Stefano Scolari.37 In 1424, for example, Tommaso and Matteo imported twenty braccia of heavy black silk fabrics to Buda.38 The frequent mention of Hungarian golden florins of considerable quantity in the account book of a Florentine silk manufacturing company also indicates that the royal and baronial courts in Hungary were considered important buyers of Florentine silk textiles.39 However, due to the lack of detailed references in documents closely related to the transportation and marketing of textiles in Hungary, we have only fragmented information at our disposal on the kind of silk fabrics the Florentines sold in the kingdom.

In addition to textiles, other luxury items like spices and exotic animals also appear occasionally in the sources. In 1386, István Lackfi bought spices from the Panciatichi company.40 In his chronicle, Bonaccorso di Neri Pitti notes that he, as an apprentice, took a load of saffron with his master, Matteo di Scelto Tinghi, to Buda.41 In 1422, Matteo Scolari mentions in his letters spices as well as exotic animals like Arabian horses, falcons, ostriches, and monkeys, which his agent imported from Tunis, probably in the intention of taking them to the royal court in Hungary and to his brother, Pippo Scolari.42

The most important import items transported to the Italian Peninsula by the Florentines were the precious metals: gold, silver, and copper. In 1429, for example, Tommaso di Piero Melanesi imported copper to Venice in the amount of 1,000 Venetian ducats.43 In 1435, Tommaso was in charge of copper mines, which suggests that he may have traded in copper bullions on a regular basis. Other Florentine merchants were engaged in the silver trade. Among them we find Bernardo di Sandro Talani, from whom King Sigismund confiscated textiles, money, and silver in 1427.44 Another Florentine, Giovanni del maestro Niccolò Falcucci, was probably also interested in the trade in silver and gold.45 In one case, Giovanni, at the demand of Andrea Scolari, sold a piece of gold in Italy (6 pesetti di Buda, 18 carats) for 522 florins, 66 denari and 100 solidi.46 Interestingly, the precious metal trade to Italy was not monopolized by Florentine businessmen. A few sources indicate that a business group from Arezzo may have cooperated with the Florentines, including the nobleman Mariotto di Biagio Griffolini, his grandson, and a couple of other businessmen, who occasionally traveled to various parts of Hungary.47 Furthermore, we have some fragmented information concerning the import of Hungarian leather to Italy.48

The Geographical Outreach of the Network

Thanks to their continuous travels and their cooperative enterprises with a number of businessmen coming from other Tuscan towns like Arezzo, Prato, and Siena, Florentine merchants operating in the Kingdom of Hungary maintained a vast business network outside their homeland. This network extended from Flanders to Tunis and from Catalonia to Alessandria. One of the most important trade hubs for Florentine merchants operating in the Italian Peninsula was Venice, which, by the late fourteenth century, was already filled with Florentines. Similarly, Ancona may have served as a port city for Florentines’ goods to be transported to Dalmatia. However fragmented, its archives may shed some light on the commercial activity of the city with the other side of the Adriatic Sea.49 Another major transit point was Genoa, which was used by Florentines who imported various luxury items from North Africa to Florence. Merchants like Matteo Scolari, the Zati brothers, and the Lamberteschi used the services of Genoese captains.50 In addition to Tunis, Florentine merchants operating in Hungary were well-connected through their networks to other extra-European markets as well. Matteo Scolari, for example, invested money into overseas ventures several times; he ordered goods with the first galley to Alessandria.51 Bernardo Lamberteschi also purchased goods in Alessandria, but his agents were mostly traveling to destinations like Flanders and Catalonia to ensure the supply of raw wool.52 In the 1430s, they relied on the services of the Florentine galleys, which departed from Pisa.

In Rome, the papal court also offered business opportunities for Florentine merchants. For instance, in cooperation with another churchman Currado di Piero Cardini, Andrea Scolari, the bishop of Várad (today Oradea, Romania), traded in textiles there.53 Matteo Scolari’s in-law, the banker Vieri di Vieri Guadagni, may have offered banking services in the papal court instead.54 Other merchants, like Filippo di Giovanni del Bene and the aforementioned Currado, became papal collectors in Hungary.

Commercial Routes between Florence and Buda

In spite of the considerable distance between the two cities, Florence and Buda became closely connected by commercial routes. The most important documents in this regard are the accounts of the brothers Rinaldo and Luca di messer Maso degli Albizzi, who traveled to the Kingdom of Hungary in 1426 and 1427.55 The two distinct collections reveal more than any other source about the itineraries and the difficulties of the most frequently used land and sea routes, on which Florentine merchants traveled for business purposes. Even though the Albizzi brothers were heading for Buda as members of diplomatic contingents, the reference to itinerant Florentine merchants in their travel accounts proves that businessmen used the very same routes.56

Both of the embassies used the commercial route leading north from Florence to Bologna through the Apennines. In Rinaldo’s case, the first segment of the trip after Bologna included Ferrara and Padua. Luca went through Corticella, Torre della Fossa, Francolino, Crespino, Loreo, and Chioggia.57 Generally, transport from Florence to Bologna was by pack animals over the Apennines. Travelers then went from Bologna to the region of Ferrara overland or by canal and river and from Ferrara to Venice by river and by sea. According to Luca’s diary, he was traveling by land until Corticella, located north of Bologna, from there he continued his trip by river to Ferrara. He then continued his journey on horseback again from Ferrara to nearby Francolino, a port on the Po River, where he boarded a boat. Turning to the north at Loreo, he left behind the Po River and arrived in Chioggia, probably by river, from where he took another boat to Venice. Including the several compulsory stops during their trip, which were made both for relaxation and networking, the travel from Florence to Venice took approximately one week.

As the main hub for the redistribution of commercial goods along the route, Venice played a crucial role in the transportation of the Florentines’ merchandise. They typically stopped there for several days to purchase goods, socialize with their fellow-citizens, and arrange shipping. After having arrived in Venice, Rinaldo continued his travels overland to the north, through Villach and Vienna, reaching Buda after 40 days of travel and diplomatic visits. At the same time, Luca took a ship in Venice and followed the coastline through Livenza (today Caorle, Italy), Daira (today Dajla, Croatia), Parenzo (today Poreč, Croatia), Fagiana (today Fažana, Croatia), Vegli (today Veli Brijuni, Croatia), Pola (today Pula, Croatia), Medulino (today Medulin, Croatia), and Ossero (today Osor, Croatia), arriving at the port of Segna after 8 days.58 Maritime navigation depended a great deal upon weather conditions, which might shorten or lengthen a trip. Because of an illness caused probably by the harsh weather at sea, Luca felt sick during their trip and was forced, after a long stay in Segna, to return to Florence, without ever reaching the royal court in Hungary. On the way back, Luca used the same sea route with smaller modifications. Having arrived from the Northwest to Hungary, Rinaldo left the kingdom in a southwestern direction, following another overland route past the Mura river, reaching Venice by following the road from Vienna.59

Given the fact that Florence was not a major transit center for commercial goods, it was the Florentine merchants who, by operating in the most important trade hubs, built up an international transport system for their goods.60 Therefore, in the travel of the Florentine ambassadors, the transportation of commercial goods, and the movement of Florentine merchants, a crucial role was given to cooperation between Florentine businessmen living in the cities situated along the commercial routes. Florentines offered each other hospitality in their foreign home, as well as shelter and supplies for their horses and sometimes even accompanying servants. Their reliable and experienced men carried messages and goods, and occasionally they offered traveling Florentines protection as well. The social network used by itinerant Florentine merchants was a business network of fellow-citizens who were active far from their homeland. Members of these networks very often maintained not only business but social ties as well with one another, thus ensuring the circulation of goods, messages, and people. Their primary concerns were weather conditions, health issues arising during their travels, and the security of their goods and people. Given this, merchants may well have often traveled together in order to guarantee their own safety and defray the otherwise elevated costs of toll and travel.61 For the safety of their goods, they might even have signed an insurance contract with one of the Florentine banks operating either in Florence or in Venice.62 Safe-conducts, obtained from the Florentine or the Venetian Signoria or from King Sigismund himself, may also have given traveling Florentine merchants a major sense of security.63

Venice as Major Trade Hub

There is no question that Venice played a crucial role in the redistribution of commercial goods transported by Florentine merchants and in their networking and business activity. The supply of raw wool in Florence and the circulation of finished Florentine textiles in the eastern Mediterranean and the eastern part of the continent depended a great deal upon the work of Florentines living in Venice. To a large extent, local and international banking, the trade of bills of exchange going through Venice, and the insurance business were in their hands.64 Thanks to its importance, Venice probably had the most sizeable Florentine business community living outside of their home city. Reinhold Mueller claims that Florentines settled in the city in high numbers as soon as the first part of the fourteenth century.65 However, in spite of the importance of the Florentines in Venetian trade and economy, Mueller’s study is the most detailed analysis of their economic activity in the city so far. Apart from the scholarship on the well-known cases of the Venetian branch of the Medici company and the settlement of members of the Gaddi family, no in-depth research has been done on Florentine merchant families who were engaged in trade around the turn of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Earlier, Zsuzsa Teke suggested that some Florentines living in the Venetian Republic seem to have developed business connections in the Kingdom of Hungary as well.66 Her hypothesis has not been put to the test so far. Only the involvement of the Medicis in the Hungarian copper trade in the 1380s has been studied.

In 1433, at the time of the second general census in the city of Florence, nine companies were recorded which had been established by Florentine merchants in Venice.67 Among them, at least five cooperated with the Florentines who worked in the Kingdom of Hungary: the Panciatichi&Portinari, the Medici&Portinari, the Gaddi, the Zati, and the Ugolini.68 Unfortunately, the scarcity of documents regarding commercial activity in Venice leaves little room for analysis of their trade connections or their involvement in the redistribution of goods directed to and from Hungary. As has been suggested, in the first decades of the fifteenth century the Medici did not completely lose their interest in the region and may have continued to play an intermediary role, offering banking services in Venice and in Florence for the merchants working in Hungary. The possible role of the Medici of Venice in providing credit for Florentine merchants operating in the kingdom is underlined by its fragmented account book, dated to 1436. It lists among its clients several Florentine businessmen who traded simultaneously in Venice, Florence and Hungary, including for instance members of the Borghini, Scolari and Zati families.69

By the first decade of the century, Branca di Rinieri Scolari, a nephew of Andrea Scolari, had already settled in Treviso. He was followed by his brother, Giambonino di Rinieri Scolari. Their third brother, Filippo, returned to Florence in order to manage the family business and properties there. They had also a fourth brother, Lorenzo, who may have served as a kind of travel agent for the family, since he was occasionally in the Kingdom of Hungary. Unlike Lorenzo, Giambonino never returned to Florence. His heirs obtained Venetian citizenship, and their families lived in Treviso for two more centuries.70 The Scolari brothers’ careers could be said to exemplify the successes of the triple-rooted Florentine merchant families who developed commercial and social ties in the three states. This model was adopted by other families, for instance the Del Bene family and the Zati family. Their cooperative enterprises with other Florentine kinship networks active outside their homeland may also be called typical, like the Scolari, Borghini, and Melanesi families, each of which was an active participant in international trade in the three states.71

The Melanesi company and the Scolari family were also closely linked to the firm of Andrea Lamberteschi, a Florentine wool manufacturer and merchant. Lamberteschi himself managed the production of San Martino cloth in Florence, together with his eldest son, Tommaso. Meanwhile, his agent, Giovanni di Cenni Ugolini, ran the Venetian branch.72 Three other sons of his lived in Hungary. They traded in the textiles produced in their father’s workshop and also worked as employees of the Scolari family. Andrea’s fifth son was in charge of the import of raw wool from Flanders to Venice.73 In fact, Andrea is mentioned only rarely in the Venetian documents, while his branch manager and partner may have been the key figure of their activity in Venice. Ugolini, who settled for life in the Stato da Mar, is mentioned several times in documents of Venetian court cases.74

Giovanni Ugolini and the other aforementioned merchants maintained strong economic connections to Filippo di Giovanni del Bene as well.75 By the turn of the fifteenth century, Filippo had moved to Hungary, while his cousin, Jacopo di Francesco, with whom he had many business ventures, was exiled to Venice in the 1390s. Jacopo had been involved in business with Andrea Lamberteschi.76 Meanwhile, the Del Bene back home turned into important wool manufacturers by the first part of the fourteenth century. In Hungary, however, they were employed in various administrative positions, and they also became papal collectors.

Similarly, members of the Zati family developed this triple-rooted social and business profile. Close cooperation between the Zati siblings and cousins and the geographical spread of members of the family guaranteed the efficiency of their business network. The six brothers, Bartolomeo, Francesco, Niccolò, Simone, Giuliano, and Uberto d’Amerigo, kept merchant companies and businesses simultaneously in Buda, Florence, and Venice. They also cooperated closely with the Medici of Venice as agnatic kin to Lipaccio di Bindo Bardi, a partner of the company.77 The Zati acquired a reputation in Florence in the fourteenth century thanks to their participation in the wool-business. Their father was a wool manufacturer in Florence, and he was still active in the second decade of the fifteenth century.78 Into the 1420s, the six brothers maintained their Florentine citizenship and continued to pay taxes there, in spite of the fact that they used Venice as the base for their activity. For their businesses, they made use of Genoa as well, the other main maritime trade hub alongside Venice.79 Some of their commercial goods came directly from the workshops they maintained in Florence. In the mid-1410s, there was a wool manufacturing company registered under Uberto’s and Niccolò’s names which was still operating in 1433.80 It seems likely to me that one of them, Giuliano, who clearly lived in Venice, was running another workshop in Florence. The Venetian company, instead, was operating under Giuliano’s and Niccolò’s names, and they were the ones who formally operated the Buda branch in the 1430s.81 Meanwhile, Uberto played the role of travel agent in Buda. Their business in Hungary lasted at least until the 1440s, when Uberto died and his brothers petitioned to the Florentine chancery as heirs to help them recuperate his credits and other belongings in the Kingdom of Hungary. In addition to wool, which was also the most common item for the Lamberteschi-Ugolini company, the Zati sold silk textiles in the Kingdom of Hungary. As far as one can tell on the basis of the available sources, the supply of silk textiles in the royal court provided by the Zati brothers did not overlap chronologically with the Scolaris’ trade in silk fabrics in Hungary. There is no direct evidence indicating that the two families obtained, in the 1420s and 1430s, a monopoly in trading with silk textiles in the royal court. However, the lack of references to other merchants selling silk to King Sigismund suggests that the two families may have managed to secure an exclusive agreement with the sovereign.

Venice, as the major producer of wool and silk fabrics, exercised a protectionist policy aimed at strengthening the domestic industry throughout the period. In spite of this, Florentine textiles made their way to the city, and from there to the international market.82 Their trade may well have been facilitated by the Florentines who received citizenship in Venice, which made it easier for their fellow-citizens to obtain permissions for the transiting of domestic products.

Conclusion

By the second part of the reign of Louis I, the continuous trade contacts between the Florentine Republic and the Kingdom of Hungary gave rise to a lively Florentine community in Buda, which probably reached its peak in terms of political influence and economic activity during the reign of Sigismund of Luxemburg. After a depression of two or three decades following King Sigismund’s death, the period of Matthias Corvinus again saw the arrival of a considerable number of Florentine tradesmen to Hungary, who provided the royal and baronial courts with their goods. Because of the considerable distance between Florence and Buda, as well as her importance as a major trading hub and producer of wool and silk textiles, Venice played a leading role in the transportation and the redistribution of the Florentines’ goods. The commercial triangle formed between Florence, Venice, and Buda was built first and foremost upon the network of Florentine merchants. Venetians seem to have had only a minor share in this commerce. Throughout the period, the Florentines ensured the continuous distribution of their domestic products: wool textiles, initially, and later, from the 1380s onwards, also their high-quality silk fabrics. The appearance of Florentine silk textiles at this early phase of domestic production may testify to the simultaneous development of the Florentine silk industry and its marketing in the courts of Hungary. At the time, silk in the Kingdom of Hungary was often sold by the manufacturers themselves. Meanwhile, silk, which back then may have been a highly individualized item, became very popular and widespread by the reign of Matthias Corvinus, thanks to the development of the domestic industry, which made possible its continuous distribution by Florentine merchants even in the eastern part of the continent. The marketing of Florentine silk textiles, as luxury items, shaped the tastes of the local population. Imitations of silk, which were common in Florentine wall- and table-paintings, became part of the visual landscape.

Bibliography

Archival Sources

Archivio dell’Ospedale degli Innocenti (AOI)

Estranei

 

Archivio di Stato di Firenze (ASF)

Arte della Lana

Carte Strozziane

Serie I.

Catasto

Consulte e Pratiche

Corporazioni Religiose Soppresse dal Governo Francese (Corp. Rel. Sopp.)

Diplomatico

Mediceo avanti il Principato (MAP)

Mercanzia

Signori

Missive

I. Cancelleria

Dieci di Balia

Otto di Pratica

Legazioni e Commissarie

Missive e Responsive

Legazioni e Commissarie

 

Archivio di Stato di Treviso

Estimi

Archivio di Stato di Venezia (ASV)

Cassiere della bolla ducale

Grazie

Giudici di Petizion

Sentenze a giustizia

Sentenze e interdetti

 

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* The study benefited from the support of the National Research, Development and Innovation Office - NKFIH no. PD. 117033 (entitled: Italy and Hungary in the Renaissance). Research at the Venetian National Archives and the National Archives in Treviso were supported by the Vittore Branca Center, The International Center for the Study of Italian Culture.

Austrian Salt in Pozsony in the Mid-Fifteenth Century

István Draskóczy*

Eötvös Loránd University, Faculty of Humanities, Department of Medieval and Early Modern Hungarian History

 

In this essay, I explore how the city of Pozsony (Preßburg, today Bratislava, Slovakia), which lies in the valley of the Danube River on what was once the most important trade route connecting the Kingdom of Hungary with Western Europe, managed to acquire Austrian salt, an import that, in general, was forbidden by the rulers. The city facilitated this not only by obtaining a number of privileges, but also by farming the tax collected in the city on foreign trade, the so-called “thirtieth” (tricesima). In practice, however, this could only be done in varying ways. In the course of my research, it also became clear that Pozsony needed Austrian salt for a variety of reasons. The city was distant from the salt mines, so the Transylvanian salt that was brought to the borderlands in the west was already very expensive. In many cases, however, none of the salt that was produced in the country even made it to Pozsony because of the complications posed by transportation, the deficiencies of the fiscal system, and fluctuations in production. The Austrian salt mines, in contrast, were relatively nearby, the cooked salt that was produced at these mines was essentially consistent in its quality, and it was also less expensive. In this essay, I also examine how the quantities of salt that were imported from Austria changed in various periods and how the city marketed excess salt in other parts of the country. Naturally, the people of Pozsony were not able to sell the salt in the entire territory of Hungary. My analysis indicates that the market for this salt was limited to the County of Pozsony itself, part of Nyitra County, the part of Komárom County to the north of the Danube River, and parts of Győr and Moson Counties.

Keywords: Pozsony, Austrian salt, royal salt chambers, volume of salt imports, fifteenth century

Introduction

In the first half of the fifteenth century, Pozsony became the most important trading city in the Kingdom of Hungary, in no small part because in 1402 King Sigismund granted the city the staple right and in 1430 he gave it the right of coinage. The burghers of the city played important roles in commerce in Hungary in cloth and other manufactured goods from Western Europe, and they had ties to merchants in cities like Vienna, Cologne, and Nuremberg.1 The various textiles constituted wares of particular importance in the large-scale trade of imports because of their value and their significance in international commerce,2 and Austrian salt was, in comparison, less important. However, the fact that, despite a royal ban repeatedly put on the import of salt, Austrian salt made its way to Pozsony time and again, indicates that it was an item that merits the attention of historians.3

In Hungary, salt was mined in Transylvania and Máramaros (today Maramureş, a region most of which now lies in Romania), and the mines in these two regions provided salt for the entire country. By the beginning of the fourteenth century at the latest, the mining and sale of salt had become a royal monopoly.4 In 1397, King Sigismund issued detailed regulations concerning commerce in salt. Salt was transported from the mines in Transylvania and Máramaros to other parts of the country by boat or in carts (territories to the south of the Sava River used sea salt). In several places, new royal chambers were created (or old chambers were revived), which sold the salt at prices established by the king.5 The chambers were also entrusted with the task of ensuring that the royal court maintained its monopoly on salt and preventing unauthorized foreign salt from reaching the markets in Hungary. One of these revived chamber centers was established precisely in Pozsony. While, in the terms of the regulations issued in 1397, the price of 100 pieces of rock salt in the mining regions was one golden florin, by the time such a unit reached Pozsony, Nagyszombat (today Trnava, Slovakia), or Sopron, the royal officials already sold it for five golden florins. According to the available sources, the chamber prices then established by the ruler remained in effect until the early sixteenth century. King Sigismund also issued regulations specifying the respective marketing areas of salt from Máramaros and Transylvania. Rock salt from Máramaros could be sold on the markets in the part of the country between the Tisza River and the Zagyva River.6 Accordingly, Pozsony was one of the markets for the distant mines of Transylvania, a distance which, as mentioned above, resulted in a huge increase in the price of rock salt in Pozsony and its region.

In the fourteenth century, salt production in the Austrian provinces neighboring Hungary began to grow. Because of the geological conditions, salt was found there in different kinds of stone, from which it could be dissolved by water and then cooked. This cooked salt was taken to the markets in Hungary. The records concerning salt were kept according to “Fuder,” or wooden tubs (into which the salt was originally packed), the precise size of which actually varied depending on the mine from which the salt came (one Fuder from Aussee was 125 pounds or 70 kilograms,7 whereas a Fuder from Hallstatt was between 100 and 115 pounds, or 56 and 64,4 kilograms). After drying, the salt was put in smaller drums called “Küfel,” or “cupa” in Latin, which made it easier to transport. A Küfel weighed roughly 7 kilograms.8 The salt that made it to the markets in and around Pozsony and Sopron came primarily from Hallstatt. In Hungary, it was already referred to as Gmunden salt (in 1453, King Ladislaus V of Hungary called it “unser Gmundisch Salz”), after the town of Gmunden in Upper Austria, where the ducal salt office was located. In Gmunden, the salt was packaged into “Küfel” and sent on its way (by boat) to market destinations. Some salt was even transported to Gmunden from Aussee. Lower Austria (first and foremost the areas lying to the south of the Danube River) constituted a natural market for the mining wares shipped from Gmunden, but some of these mining wares were also taken to the southern territories of Bohemia. In Bohemia and the areas to the north of the Danube, however, Hallein and the mines in Bavaria offered some competition, so the merchants were only too happy to be able to take salt to the markets in Hungary as well.9

Austrian Salt in Pozsony

The earliest data concerning the importation of Austrian salt into Pozsony dates to the fourteenth century. The available sources suggest that in the middle of the century, there were problems with the supply of salt in the country, and the territories on the periphery had difficulty obtaining adequate amounts. In 1354, King Louis I of Hungary permitted the northern territories of the kingdom to use rock salt from Poland and Sopron to use Austrian cooked salt. A charter issued in 1355 indicates that salt from Austria was already being imported into Pozsony as well. Indeed, the burghers of the city had been using Austrian salt even earlier than this. The permission that was issued by the ruler in 1356 specified that German (i.e. Austrian) salt had already been used in the area earlier.10 Later, the import of salt from Austria was forbidden, but in 1362 the ruler again had to grant a concession permitting it. A new prohibition was issued later, which again had to be withdrawn in 1381, though the royal salt chamber was active in the city. These measures indicate that the royal chamber system was not able to provide enough salt for the peripheral regions in the west.11 Nor was King Sigismund able to prevent the import of salt from Austria and Poland. While the 1405 law prohibited the use of salt from abroad, in 1407 the city of Pozsony itself purchased salt from Vienna. In the 1430s, the importation of salt must have been quite regular.12

Following the death of King Albert of Habsburg, Hungary fell into a state of civil war. István and György Rozgonyi, who were serving as the ispáns of Pozsony County, supported Wladislas III of Poland, while the city stood behind Queen Elisabeth until her death in December 1442 and then supported Ladislaus V.13 The salt mines were in the hands of János Hunyadi and Miklós Újlaki, who supported Wladislas III. When János Hunyadi was elected as regent in 1446, he also assumed the administration of the royal revenues. Hunyadi remained in control of the royal incomes even after Ladislaus V had effectively come to the throne in 1453. He devoted particular attention to the salt mines and salt chambers, and as a consequence of the measures he introduced, the income from the salt monopoly increased.14 His allies, György and Sebestyén Rozgonyi as ispáns of Pozsony (the latter taking the place of his deceased father István), royal treasurer Mihály Ország, who was also captain of Nagyszombat, Pongrác Szentmiklósi and Miklós Újlaki exerted close control over the counties of Pozsony and Nyitra. Hunyadi only extended his direct influence to Pozsony in 1450, when he took control of the royal castle there.15 Because of the uncertain political circumstances, Hungarian rock salt hardly made it to the borderlands in the west until 1450. Thus, the people of Pozsony were able to purchase and sell salt from the mines in the neighboring lands of Austria without hindrance (see the import volumes for 1444–1464 and 1496–1499 in Tables 1 and 2 in the Appendix). At the end of 1439 or the beginning of 1440, the city farmed the local office that administered the collection the thirtieth by charter from the dowager Queen Elisabeth. Pozsony used this opportunity to support the trade interests of its burghers.16 By establishing control over the administration of the thirtieth, the city further eased the import of Austrian salt.17 The sources suggest that at the time no royal salt chamber operated in the city. After Hunyadi took power, he seized the chance to establish a salt chamber in Pozsony and prohibit the import of Austrian salt. He provided compensation for the city by leasing the salt chamber to the city for a year at the end of 1450. According to the charter, Hunyadi gave the city every tyminum (10,000 pieces) of Hungarian rock salt for 410 golden florins (to be paid half in Hungarian golden florins, half in Viennese coins). The chamber provided for the territories between Nagyszombat, Galgóc (today Hlohovec, Slovakia), and Komárom.18 A charter issued in April 1451 indicates that Stefan Gmaitl, a burgher of Pozsony, became a special familiaris of Hunyadi, and assumed the office of salt chamberer in his service. Regrettably, the document does not reveal whether or not he held this office in Pozsony, though one can assume he probably did. In any case, the relationship between Gmaitl and his native city was not always smooth, for the city council demanded that he pay the thirtieth after his wares, though in principle he was exempt from the tax.19 After the lease had expired, Hunyadi took direct control over the chamber, and he put István Sasvári, another familiaris in his service, at the head of the two chambers in Pozsony and Nyitra. In March of 1452, Sasvári transferred 400 golden florins-worth of rock salt to the city of Pozsony on the regent’s account. However, Pozsony still had control of the royal salt, which was not under the jurisdiction of the chamber, and at the instructions of the regent it could make drafts on this salt. At the beginning of 1453, Sasvári was still in this position, and the salt chamber continued to function in the city that year.20

After Ladislaus V finally started his personal rule in 1453, the burghers of Pozsony rushed to have him affirm their old privileges. In July of 1453, the king once again granted the city permission to import salt from Austria. As the royal charter reveals, salt from Hungarian territories was also sold in Pozsony. Before a month had passed, however, the king issued a general ban on the use of foreign salt in the Kingdom of Hungary. Thus, it is hardly surprising that in July 1454 Pozsony again managed to prevail on the king to grant a concession and allow the city to import salt. True, the royal charter (which refers to the concession granted by King Louis I of Hungary) specified that the “German” salt that was brought into the city could only be used by the people of Pozsony.21 The available sources clearly indicate that in the spring of 1455 the royal chamber was functioning again. At the time, it was managed by the city of Pozsony, in all likelihood on Hunyadi’s behalf. According to the accounts from this year, Hungarian rock salt was sold there.22 Yet the accounts of Pozsony also attest that “German” cooked salt was also sold in the city in spite of the fact that it functioned as the seat of the royal salt chamber. In April of 1453, Hunyadi therefore called on the city, in an indignant letter, not to permit the import of salt from Austria (as it had been doing thus far) and to allow the representatives of the chamber to carry out investigations at the branch thirtieth offices, and even help their work there. He put pressure on the council by threatening it with the confiscation of the thirtieth.23 These data indicate on the one hand that Hunyadi was resolute in his opposition to the import of salt from Austria, while the ruler (who was also duke of Austria) was not. On the other hand, they also suggest that the Hungarian chamber organization (which was under the oversight of Hunyadi) was not able to provide even close to enough salt, which was precious indeed, for the borderlands in the west, so the territory remained a good market for salt from Austria (which was cheaper anyway).

The Volume of Salt Imports

Beginning in the 1443–1444 financial year, the municipal accounts offer an overview of the quantities of the salt imports.24 The financial affairs of the city were administered by a chamberer (Chamerer), who from the late 1430s are known by the name, and were assisted in their work by paid employees (Chammerschreiber or Chammerknechte). The chamberer was responsible for rendering all of the accounts. He usually began his tenure in office on May 12 (the day of Saint Pancras), and he usually remained in office for a year, though some of the people who held this position were in office for less than a year. The mayor was responsible for overseeing the work of the head of the chamber.25 The accounts were not kept consistently, however, and today we often have only incomplete volumes on the basis of which to make hypotheses. The salt that was imported to the city was measured in Küfel. The account entries indicate that the suppliers did indeed pay a thirtieth (i.e. one Küfel for every thirty).26 It was beneficial to the city to be able to levy the thirtieth in kind, since some of the salt thus collected was sold and some of it was given to the city officials as a gift. The city’s income stemming from the traffic of salt was not a substantial amount, oscillating between 100 and 160 golden florins annually. With regards to the value of the import, according to the calculations of Ferenc Kováts, in the 1440s it was somewhere between 3,000 and 4,800 golden florins annually, while in the 1450s it rose to 6,000 golden florins. This amount is a mere 4 percent of the 150,000 golden florins-worth of taxable merchandise brought into the city.27

The numbers accounted by the employees of the chamber indicate that the amount of salt imported into the city fluctuated. In 1446–1447, very little salt was imported. There are no records of any legally imported salt between 1451 and 1453 or in 1455. And yet, in the 1440s and 1450s, significant amounts of salt may well have been imported into Pozsony. Of the various accounts that are at our disposal, the one from 1448 seems the most complete. According to this record, between January 28 and November 30 of this year, 194,464 Küfel (1,361.25 tons) of salt were officially imported. In all likelihood, this quantity increased in the 1450s. In the period between April 22 and December 22 1456, 170,406 Küfel were imported (1,192.82 tons). Duties were imposed on 133,800 Küfel (936.6 tons) of imported salt between May 9 and December 13 1457. After this, however, the amount of salt on which duties were levied began to decrease, and after 1465 the import of salt completely ceased, disregarding a few exceptional cases. Thus, in the 1440s and 1450s, there were significant imports (between 1,000 and 1,400 tons a year), though there were years in which only smaller quantities of salt were registered by the customs officials.28 Unfortunately, the available sources do not indicate how much salt was produced within the Kingdom of Hungary in the middle of the fifteenth century. The demand for salt within the kingdom at the end of the century must have been somewhere between 24,000 and 30,000 tons,29 of which 1,000–1,400 tons constituted between 3 and 5 percent. Naturally, if one takes into consideration contraband as well, these numbers are obviously higher.

Initially, King Matthias Corvinus did not take measures to hinder the import of salt through the city of Pozsony. Nonetheless, the amount of salt that was brought into the kingdom through the Pozsony customs office dropped drastically after 1459. This coincided with a general drop in foreign trade flowing through the city. The explanation for this lies in the Austrian financial crisis and the catastrophic drop in the value of the Viennese denarii.30 However, one must also take into consideration the shifts in the policy of the royal court. In 1464, the national assembly forbade the import of salt. In 1465, King Matthias sent stern instructions to the city of Pozsony in which he prohibited the import of salt. This order had to be issued again in 1468. In other words, in spite of the prohibition, salt continued to be smuggled into the city.31 Later, it became possible again to occasionally import salt from Austria with a royal license, but in their quantity these imports never reached the levels that had been attained in the 1440s and 1450s.

It is also worth considering the importance of exports to Hungary from the perspective of mining in Austria. In Hallstatt, roughly 8,000 to 9,000 tons of salt were extracted annually. If one adds to this the salt that was mined in Aussee and then transported to Gmunden, at least 9,000 to 10,000 tons of salt had to find a market.32 With the most prudent calculation, 1,000–1,400 tons is 9–13 percent of this amount. Thus, the export to Hungary was hardly trifling. If one also keeps in mind that a significant amount of salt was brought into the Kingdom of Hungary through Sopron, and takes into consideration contraband as well, which, regrettably, cannot be quantified, and adds those amounts of salt that, for whatever reason, were not actually noted in the records, it becomes quite clear that the Hungarian market was in all likelihood very important for the producers and merchants (the princes who profited off of the trade of salt) of Gmunden (and Aussee). When King Matthias brought an end to the legal import of salt, this measure had serious consequences for the producers and merchants alike, since they had to find new markets for their export.

The Markets for the City of Pozsony

What was the extent of the territory that the burghers of Pozsony were able to provide with salt imported from Austria? The city itself gave an answer to this question when it explained the details of its right to import salt from Austria to the ruler in 1453. Its delegates explained to the ruler (who raised no objections) that the city had previously transported and sold salt on the territories extending, on one side of the Danube River to the Rába River, and on the other side of the Danube River to the Vág River.33 Regrettably, the charter gives no other, more detailed information.34 The river Danube referred to in the charter should by no means be interpreted as the small branch of the Danube that in the Middle Ages was called Csalló (the Danube Csalló, or Csallóduna),35 but rather as the main branch of the Danube (which was nowhere near as important then as in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries), or the branch of the river known as “szigetközi” (an island plain in Western Hungary bordered by the Danube and its branches), both of which in the Middle Ages were used by boats traveling from Vienna and Pozsony to Visegrád and Buda (traffic on the “szigetközi” Danube must have been particularly large).36 Thus, the territory to which the city of Pozsony had royal license to transport and sell salt imported from Austria included the river island known today as Csallóköz (today Žitný ostrov, Slovakia), as well as, at least to some extent, the area of the southern shores of the main branch of the Danube.

The burghers of Pozsony had close ties to Csallóköz. They regularly traveled to the island and the area surrounding it, from where they returned with foodstuffs. Their carts also often traveled by way of Csallóköz to Komárom on their way to Buda.37 Place names of Csallóköz and settlements on the southern bank of the Danube are often found in the last wills and testaments of the denizens of Pozsony, in a way outlining the territories that were part of the narrower market zone of the city.38 According to Kováts, the extent of the city’s reach stretched on the northern side of the Danube to the mining towns, Esztergom, and Vác. In other words, the whole of Pozsony and Nyitra counties depended on the markets and fairs in Pozsony, and so did the southern part of Bars County and the northern part of Komárom and Esztergom counties, lying just beyond the Danube.39 The extent of the territory that the burghers of Pozsony alluded to as the area where they marketed imported Austrian salt was smaller than this, since it was bordered by the Vág river, but it did stretch to the southern shore of what today is the main branch. Most of the thirtieth offices farmed by the city of Pozsony in the 1450s were located in this territory.40 Thus, the part of the country where the salt that came to Hungary through the customs office of Pozsony was sold consisted of Pozsony County itself, part of Nyitra County,41 at least the stretch of Komárom County lying to the north of the Danube, and parts of Győr and Moson Counties. Towards the northeast, it bordered the market zone of Nagyszombat, and towards the southeast it bordered the markets of Sopron, the border of which was also the Rába River. They were both important commercial centers. It is the territory described above that can be identified as the market zone of Pozsony.42 Furthermore, this was the part of the country for which the Hungarian chamber organization was no more able to guarantee adequate provisions of salt, even if only at times. The 1,000–1,400 tons of salt that were imported from Austria would have been enough for a population of 100,000–140,000 people at most, if one reckons with a demand of 10 kilograms of salt per person. The population of this territory may well have been approximately this size.43

It is worth taking note of a bit of information dating from 1470. With the consent of the ruler, treasurer János Ernuszt permitted the purchase and sale of 400 pounds of imported salt. This amount corresponds to 96,000 Küfel (673 tons),44 which in principle would have been enough to meet the demands of 60,000–70,000 people in a given year. The contents of the charter indicate that the city (and the royal chamber) was the center of the salt trade in the region. People may well have come to the city to purchase this important item not only from most of the settlements in Pozsony County (Nagyszombat was also home to a salt chamber, so its market zone should not be taken into consideration), but also from the settlements in the neighboring territories of the surrounding counties.45 For the sake of comparison, it is worth considering some of the later data. When Wladislas II of Hungary permitted the import of salt from Austria in the period between 1496 and 1498, people could purchase the salt from the city chamber. Data from 1498/9, a period of almost a whole year, indicate the import of 8,160 Küfel (57 tons).46 This quantity would have been enough for 5,000 to 6,000 people for one year. The population of Pozsony at the beginning of the sixteenth century was between 4,200 and 4,700 people.47 Thus, this import would have been adequate for the local community and the very narrow surroundings at most.

It is worth saying a few words about the prices of salt as well. In the 1440s and 1450s, the city sold one Küfel for 7–9 Viennese denarii. Between 1496 and 1499, the city purchased one Küfel in Vienna for 13–14 Viennese denarii (roughly 4.5 Hungarian denarii) and then sold it in Hungary for 20 Viennese denarii (roughly 6–7 Hungarian denarii). At the beginning of the sixteenth century, the price of a Küfel at Pozsony was still 18–20 denarii (6–7 Hungarian denarii). At the end of the 1520s and the beginning of the 1530s, a Küfel could usually be purchased in Hainburg for 16 Viennese denarii and then sold in Pozsony for 20.48

In Transylvania, different sizes of rock salt were mined, depending on whether it was going to be transported by boat or by cart. Under the rule of the Jagiellonian dynasty, in the town of Torda (today Turda, Romania) the rock salt mined for shipment by boat was 2.7 kilograms (5.5 pounds) and the rock salt cut for shipment by cart was 8.6 kilograms (17.5 pounds). In the town of Vízakna (today Ocna Sibiului, Romania), rock salt for shipment by boat weighed 4.9 kilograms (10 pounds) and rock salt for shipment by cart 10.8 kilograms (22 pounds). In Dés (today Dej, Romania) presumably rock salt in the amount of 9.33 kilograms (19 pounds) was cut for shipment by cart and perhaps 2.5 kilograms (5 pounds) for shipment by boat. In 1515/6, one hundred units of the rock salt cut for shipment by boat were worth 1.1 golden florins, and one hundred units of the rock salt cut for shipment by cart could be purchased at the mines for 3 golden florins. One can easily imagine how much these prices jumped by the time the salt had made it to the borderlands (whether brought by boat or cart). These prices could hardly have competed with the price of a hundred Küfel, which weighed about 700 kilograms, and cost 6–7 Hungarian golden florins).49

Conclusion

In the middle of the fifteenth century, a great deal of Austrian salt was consumed in the territories of Western Hungary. The rise in the import of salt can equally be explained by the domestic political circumstances and the fact that the city of Pozsony leased the local chief customs office. The burghers of the city strove to take full advantage of this opportunity. Drawing on their privileges, they brought quantities of salt to Hungary that far exceeded the needs of the local population. Others also took advantage of the profits to be made in the trade in salt. As power was centralized and consolidated under the rule of King Matthias, the king took back the thirtieth, and the amount of Austrian salt was imported to Hungary decreased accordingly. One should also keep in mind that Hungarian salt was too expensive in the parts of the country that were far from the mines, and indeed it was not always possible to get enough salt from the mining areas to the distant borderlands. This was due to the difficulties of transportation, the inefficiencies of the chamber system, and the fluctuations in production in Hungary (though production also fluctuated in Austria). Furthermore, the rock salt mined in Hungary was sold in quantities that differed in their weight, while the Küfel brought in from Austria were always roughly the same. Finally, while in general the salt that was mined in Transylvania was very pure, the cooked salt from Austria may have been more uniform in its quality.50

 

Appendix. The import of Austrian salt in Pozsony

 

Table 1. Salt imported between 1444 –1464 on which the thirtieth was paid in Pozsony51

Period	Number of Küfel	Kilograms
June 10–December 9, 1444	79,200	554,400 (532,224)
March 12–December 30, 1445	127,080	889,560 (853,978)
January 1–April 3, 1446	7,080	49,560 ( 47,578)
July 17–December 8, 1447	76,440	535,080 (513,677)
January 28–November 30, 1448	194,464	1,361,248 (1,306,798)
May 13–October 11, 1450	113,580	795,060 (763,258)
March 29–May 28, 1454	18,720	131,040 (125,799)
April 22–December 22, 1456	170,406	1,192,842 (1,145,129)
May 9–December 13, 1457	133,800	936660 (899136)
March 14–July 7, 1458	60,840	425,880 (408,845)
June 2.–December 31, 1459	94,170	659,190 (632,823)
May 30–September 21, 1461	37,800	264,600 (254,816)
January 2–July 8, 1463	19842	138,894 (133,339)
December 16–December 22, 1464	6,925	48,475 (46,536)

 

 

Table 2. Salt imports into the city of Pozsony in 1496–149952

Period	Number of Küfel	Kilograms
December 13, 1496–April 17, 1497	6,000	42,000 (40,320)
May 17–December 12, 1498	6,840	47,880 (45,965)
March 21–April 20, 1499	1,320	9,240 (8,871)
1498–1499	8,160	57,120 (54,836)

 

Bibliography

Archival sources

Archív Mesta Bratislavy (=AMB, Archives of the City of Bratislava)

Archív Mesta Šamorin (=AMŠ, Archives of the Town of Šamorin)

Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára (=MNL OL, Hungarian National Archives)

MNL OL Diplomatikai Fényképtár (=DF, Photograph Collection of Charters)

MNL OL, Diplomatikai Levéltár (=DL, Medieval Charter Collection)

 

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* The author is a member of the “Lendület” (Momentum) Research Group on Medieval Hungarian Economic History at the Research Center for the Humanities of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (LP2015-4/2015), and of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences–ELTE Research Group on University History (213TKI738).

Bavarian Cloth Seals in Hungary

Maxim Mordovin*

Eötvös Loránd University, Faculty of Humanities, Institute of Archaeological Sciences

 

The import of cloth was one of the most important sectors of international trade throughout the European Middle Ages and early modern period. Its history and impact on medieval economies have been studied by scholars for quite a long time, creating the impression that there are no new sources waiting to be found. Improved methods of archaeological excavations, however, have produced data significant to the international trade connections. This data was hidden in small leaden seals that were attached to the textile fabrics indicating their quality and origin. In this paper, I examine the cloth seals originating from Bavaria that have been found so far in the Carpathian Basin and compare the information provided by them with that already known from the available written sources. This comparison leads to several important conclusions. Perhaps most importantly, the dating range of the known cloth seals can be convincingly limited within the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries for all the nineteen known textile production centers. Also, the cloth marked by these seals indicates that some serious changes arose in textile consumption at the end of the Middle Ages. In this study, I identify some new places of origin not mentioned in the written sources and trace their distribution in the medieval Kingdom of Hungary.

Keywords: international trade, textile production, medieval Bavaria, cloth seals, cloth and linen trade

Introduction

The reshaping and transformation of the Western European economy in the late Middle Ages had several consequences, including an increase in the role of the southern German and Silesian textile industry1 and an ever greater presence of its fabrics on the Hungarian markets.2 By the end of the Middle Ages, the cloth import of the Kingdom of Hungary had become dominated by the production from the Holy Roman Empire, and a large portion of these fabrics consisted of cloth from southern Germany.3 The appearance of such textiles and the changes in their temporal and geographical distribution can be very clearly traced in the contemporary written sources. Fortunately, this part of the research has already been successfully accomplished by scholars of Hungarian medieval economic history, such as György Székely and Walter Endrei. Székely evaluated the available written sources on German cloth in Hungary in his 1975 article,4 and Endrei discussed the “rest” of the archival material in his book published in 1989.5

In this paper, I introduce a new – archaeological – type of source in the research on late medieval and early modern Hungarian cloth imports. This source is a group of small lead seals, which can help in identifying the origins of particular finds.6 These seals, however, indicate the provenance of the product, but not the route by which it was transported or the origin of the merchants. Certainly, I am not the first person to notice the significance of such finds in the region. Along with the work of Walter Endrei, some articles on the subject were written by Lajos Huszár, Ján Hunka, Radu Popa, and others.7 Nevertheless, the number of cloth seals in the last two decades has increased significantly, enabling one to pursue more detailed research according to smaller regions of the provenance of such finds.8

Although the cloth seals are very well known and widely evaluated in the Western scholarly literature, until about ten years ago their significance as a source was greatly underestimated in East Central Europe.9 The use and function of these seals and the institutional background of the authentication process in the larger textile centers are thoroughly analysed and described in the works of Nicolaas Wilhelmus Posthumus, Geoff Egan and Dieter Hittinger.10 Here, therefore, I concentrate only on the seals as a new type of source omitting the details of the production process.

The last two decades of archaeological excavations and the intensive use of metal detectors (both legally and illegally) in several countries of the Carpathian Basin have produced a relatively large number of cloth seals the provenance of which lie in very different European regions, including Flanders, the Netherlands, the Holy Roman Empire, Bohemia, Silesia, Italy, etc. A significant group among them consists of finds connectable to the southern German regions, most of all to present-day Bavaria.

The borders of the huge number of principalities, counties, and duchies were continuously changing throughout the history of the Holy Roman Empire, so it is very hard to choose a single larger political-historical unit within the southern German region. This persuaded me to do an analysis of the items from the medieval and early modern finds that can be connected to the cities of the present-day Free State of Bavaria. Modern Bavaria includes parts of the historical regions of Franconia, Upper Palatinate, and Swabia. Unfortunately, the limits of the present study do not permit me to evaluate the whole German territory.

The temporal frames of the analysis are given by the dating of the earliest and latest known cloth seals provenanced from Bavarian cities. Thus, at the present stage of the research, the period in question can be limited to the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries.

In his 1975 article, György Székely mentions six southern German cities as origins of cloth exports to Hungary: Bamberg, Eichstätt, Schwabach, Ulm, Nuremberg, and its suburb, Wöhrd. All of them appear in the contemporary written sources evaluated by Székely.11 He at the same time emphasizes that despite the obvious and well-known significance of textile production of Augsburg, he found no written evidence indicating that its cloths ever made it to Hungary.12 Endrei names eight additional Bavarian cities: Dinkelsbühl, Isny, Kempten, Memmingen, München, Öttingen, Rothenburg, and Waldsee. Altogether, the available Hungarian written sources give us a list of fourteen textile production centers, which undoubtedly exported their fabrics to the Kingdom of Hungary in the period beginning in the fourteenth century and ending in the seventeenth.

Nevertheless, the total number of cities in the region in question that produced textiles in the late Middle Ages and early modern time was much higher. According to Rudolf Holbach’s monograph, at least 46 settlements had significant cloth industry.13

The Purely Written Evidence (Bamberg, Eichstätt, Öttingen, and Wöhrd)

Some of the aforementioned places, such as Bamberg, Eichstätt, and Wöhrd, can be discussed very briefly. Despite their intensive and significant cloth production in the fifteenth–sixteenth centuries, so far no archaeological evidence has been found indicating that their fabrics were sold in Hungary. No cloth seals from these cities have been found so far in any other parts of Europe. This is surprising because their cloth fabrics are mentioned relatively frequently in the Hungarian written sources.14

The cloth of Bamberg as Pabenperger is first mentioned in the so-called Sybenlinder-register from 1436.15 This register was compiled by Hans Sybenlinder, the royal castellan of Óbuda and Solymár in 1436, and it specified the tariff articles imported to Hungary. According to it, the Bamberg cloth appeared as the second-to-last cheapest item.16

The situation with Eischstätt, Öttingen, and Wöhrd on the one hand, was similar to that of Bamberg since no indisputably identifiable cloth seals connected to these cities have been found so far. On the other hand, the state of the research is a bit worse, because their fabrics are only rarely mentioned in the available written sources. The largest of the three cities is Eichstätt. Goods from Eichstätt appear in the Sybenlinder account in 1436 (de panno Achsteter) among the cheapest articles.17 The other known source for its cloth is the 1457–58 custom register from Pozsony (Pressburg, today Bratislava, Slovakia) – tuch aechstetar.18 The quality of the cloth imported to Hungary from Eichstätt can be considered medium according to the duties paid for it.19 Öttingen appears in the sources only in the sixteenth century, alongside other southern German linen fabrics traded in Hungary by the Funck Trading Company. Balázs of Csepreg (Walasch zu Tschapring) bought twenty rolls between 1517 and 1522.20

The identification of Wöhrd was problematic even in the written sources. György Székely was the first person who convincingly identified the werderÿn, werder cloth as a product of a Nuremberg-suburb, present-day Wöhrd. Known as an important textile production settlement, its fabrics appear in the Hungarian sources as early as the first half of the fifteenth century: in the Sybenlinder account21 and in the Pozsony custom register.22 They are mentioned in custom registers and north-western toll accounts from the end of the century in Nagyszeben (Hermannstadt, today Sibiu, Romania).23 Most probably, its disappearance from the later sources and the lack of the cloth seals can be explained by the fact that from the end of the Middle Ages the craftsmen of Wöhrd were actually citizens of Nuremberg. Therefore, they produced the same sort of cloth as the imperial city and – most probably – sealed it the same way. The regulations of the Nuremberg City Council from 1489 and 1522 clearly imply this practice,24 and behind some of the Nuremberg seals, actually Wöhrd may be hiding (see the Nuremberg chapter).

Written and Probable Archaeological Evidence (Schwabach, Isny, Kempten)

The cloth from Schwabach is mentioned only once in the Hungarian sources. In 1501, the royal city of Bártfa (today Bardejov, Slovakia) was allowed to pay part of its taxes in cloth from Schwabach.25 The coat of arms of Schwabach depicts two crossing beer kettles with long handles combining the lion and the symbol of the Hohenzollern family (Quarterly Argent and Sable).26 This coat of arms is interesting because a similar but very damaged image is familiar from two cloth seals. Both of them are stray finds but while the find location of the first is unknown (somewhere in south-eastern Hungary), the second one was discovered in the vicinity of Szolnok. The image visible on the obverse side depicts two crossing rods with some kind of basket at the ends. Thus, it resembles the charge of the Schwabach coat of arms. The background of the escutcheon is quarterly indicating the two different tinctures of the Hohenzollern coat of arms. According to the fragments of an inscription on the seals they can be dated to the late fifteenth or the sixteenth century (Fig. 1a).

Another city of origin which might be traceable among the archaeological finds is Isny im Allgäu. The coat of arms of Isny includes a one-headed eagle holding a smaller escutcheon with a horseshoe.27 No sources have been published on this in detail yet, but Endrei mentions the appearance of aisner or eisner linen fabrics in Hungary.28 So far, only one cloth seal can be connected with Isny. It was found on the site of a deserted village destroyed in the late sixteenth century, located near Nagyszénás in south-eastern Hungary. The obverse side of the seal shows a well-executed horseshoe in a pearled circle, and a one-headed eagle-like bird can be seen on the reverse side. Since this is the only such find known both in and outside Hungary, the identification cannot yet be confirmed. It is not possible to date the find more precisely than sometime in the fifteenth or sixteenth century based on the style of the details and the ante quem dating given by the destruction of the settlement (Fig. 1b).

The third more-or-less probable identification concerns the products of Kempten. The linen fabrics of the city were well known in the sixteenth century,29 and they can be traced on the Hungarian markets.30 The coat of arms of Kempten is party per pale with a demi-eagle and a tower31 or party per pale with a double-headed eagle united by a crown (without a tower).32 The cloth seal identifiable as being from the Kempten linen or fustian is very damaged. However, the impressions on the obverse side recognisable as a double-headed eagle (without the crown) and a small fragment of a tower. The precise find location of the item is unknown but it was discovered in the vicinity of Szolnok, most probably beside a crossing over the Tisza River. There is no firm evidence to date this find. Only the bent sides of the escutcheon with the eagle suggest the sixteenth or seventeenth century (Fig. 1c). Cloth seals from Kempten have been found in Bremen (Germany),33 London,34 and Salisbury35 but all three of them are quite different from the Hungarian one. The German find and the one from London can be dated to the seventeenth century, while the item from Salisbury is undated.

The Most Popular Cloth in Hungary (Nuremberg)

According to the fifteenth–sixteenth-century registers, Hungary had the most intense relationship with Nuremberg, of all the Bavarian cities in that period.36 This is indicated not only by the large amount of different goods imported from the city37 but also by strong family relations of the Nuremberg and Hungarian urban patriciate.38 Cloth imports played a significant role in this.

The written evidence documents the appearance of the Nuremberg fabrics on the Hungarian markets as early as the fifteenth century. The earliest reference to this can be found in the custom register of Pozsony from 1457–1458, which mentions medium quality cloth from Nuremberg. In 1497, the fabrics of the city appeared in the Saxon region of Transylvania.39

From the first quarter of the sixteenth century, the import of the Nuremberg cloth production increased significantly, a process which is reflected in the custom registers. At the same time, the available written sources report on at least two types of cloth brought from Nuremberg: more expensive long and medium-priced short fabrics.40 These products are often mentioned in the custom accounts of Brassó (1529–56, Kronstadt, today Braşov, Romania) and Zsolna (1530–31, today Žilina, Slovakia). The local regulations of Kolozsvár (Klausenburg, today Cluj-Napoca, Romania) also recorded two types of the Nuremberg cloth.41 It seems that from the 1540s the import of the higher quality textiles into Hungary became dominated by the cloth from Nuremberg. Thus, Nuremberg provided 73.67 percent of the more expensive fabrics but only 4 percent of the medium-quality fabrics, and even including the cloth from Wöhrd this figure climbs only to 16 percent. At the same time, there were no Nuremberg textiles within the cheapest group.42 The intensity of this trade was so important that the German city became seriously dependent on sales in Hungary. The collapse of the Hungarian market in the late sixteenth century caused notable financial difficulties in Nuremberg.43

Despite the wars and financial obstacles, from the mid-sixteenth century onward the cloth from Nuremberg was the most popular higher quality textile in the Kingdom of Hungary. It is mentioned in hundreds of letters and inventories, even if in some cases the contemporaneous spelling of the Nuremberg cloth may be confusing, causing it to be conflated with the cloth from Löwenberg (today, Lwówek Śląski, Poland).44 In 1551, the Transylvanian Chamber of Salt paid its employees (salt cutters) with short lurnberg cloth. During the Ottoman wars, this cloth was transported to occupied territories and sold there by the Hungarian merchants throughout the second half of the sixteenth century.45

The cloth production of Nuremberg was thoroughly analysed in 1993 by Hironobu Sakuma. According to his monograph, the textile was produced and dyed here from the late thirteenth century onward, while the differentiation of the fabrics began in the following centuries. Sources from 1504 already mention seven sorts of cloth produced in the city.46

The practice of sealing the local products first appears in the archival sources in ca. 1300 but with no indication of whether wax or lead seals were used.47 The earliest reference to detailed regulation dates to the second half of the fifteenth century. According to this regulation, at the time, the quality of the cloth was indicated by the number of lead seals. There were three sorts, which had respectively one, two or three seals. Unfortunately, the source does not discuss the imprints on the seals.48 By the beginning of the sixteenth century, the information concerning the seals becomes more detailed. The table given below summarizes the available data concerning the seals used for the Nuremberg cloth49

 

Table 1. Types of the Nuremberg cloth sealed according to the regulations

Bleached cloth	15th	Seal with a cross	single seal1
Dyed cloth		Seal with N	three seals according to the three examiners2
Dyed cloth of different origin but examined in Nuremberg	15693	Painted N and F.A.R.B.	no lead seals, except those traded in Italy. They received a usual N
Fustian		Ox, Lion, Grape and Letter
English wool 1		Saint Lawrence and Imperial Eagle
English wool 2		Coat of arms of Nuremberg, twice
English wool 3		Divided coat of arms of Nuremberg and N
English wool (other cloth)	15704	N and Shield [probably the coat of arms of the city without the eagle]

 

1 Sakuma, Die Nürnberger Tuchmacher, 50–53, 122.

2 Ibid.

3 Ibid., 137–38.

4 Ibid., 139.

The data given in the table is well reflected in the cloth seal finds in Hungary. There are four types, which can undoubtedly be connected to Nuremberg (Fig. 2).

 

Table 2. Main types of the Nuremberg cloth seals found in the Carpathian Basin

T1	Obverse: Saint Lawrence holding book and gridiron; reverse: Gothic minuscule or Renaissance type NUE/REMBE/RG	5 finds	Eastern Slovakia, Stapar (Serbia: József Géza Kiss’ Collection), vicinity of Szolnok (3 items)
T2	Coat of arms of Nuremberg on both sides of the seal	14 finds	2 from southern Transdanubia (Private collection and Hungarian National Museum [hereafter HNM]); northern Transdanubia (HNM) Unknown (HNM) Bácska-Bánság (József Géza Kiss’ Collection) Csomorkány; Ópusztaszer; Szeged vicinity; Orosháza-Csorvás; Orosháza–Szentetornya; 3 from the vicinity of Szolnok; Paks-Cseresznyés, Pápa
T3	Coat of arms of Nuremberg and Renaissance W with floral ornament	12 finds	Orosháza–Gerendás; Orosháza–Nagyszénás; Kunágota; Bácska-Bánság (József Géza Kiss’ Collection) Unknown (2 items in private collections) Castle of Bács, 3 from the vicinity of Szolnok, Paks-Cseresznyés
T4	Coat of arms of Nuremberg and Renaissance N with floral ornament	7 finds	Unknown (HNM) Battonya–Basarága; Castle of Diósgyőr; Castle of Bajcsa; Castle of Sempte (today Šintava, Slovakia); Orosháza-Szentetornya, Feltót

 

As the two tables make clear, the known cloth seals most of all fit the category either of textiles produced from English wool or English cloth dyed in Nuremberg. The first type of seals unambiguously corresponds to the first group of “English” fabrics from the sixteenth-century regulation, since there is no other version with an image of Saint Lawrence. The only difference is the lack of the imperial eagle and the inscription on the reverse side. The reason for this might be that, according to the type of NUE/REMBE/RG, these seals seem to precede this regulation chronologically. They are datable to the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century (Fig. 2a). Unfortunately, all four such seals are stray finds and cannot be dated any more precisely. The one found near Szolnok with the Renaissance […]RE[…]/[…]RK[?] inscription indicates the use of this type until at least the mid-sixteenth century. A very interesting fact about these finds is that there are no known similar cloth seals from other countries.

The second type completely corresponds to the regulation. These seals have identical coats of arms of Nuremberg on both sides (Fig. 2b). Four out of the fourteen such seals are stray finds without even a precise location. Two were found somewhere in southern Transdanubia, another one in northern Transdanubia, while in case of the fourth find there is no data available at all.50 Five more seals from different private and museum collections found in the vicinities of Szeged and Szolnok should also be considered stray finds since there is no data regarding their precise localisations. At the same time, there are several luckier finds from Ópusztaszer, Csomorkány, Paks-Cseresznyés, Orosháza-Csorvás, and Orosháza-Szentetornya on which considerably more information is available. Four of them were found during archaeological field surveys, while the fifth (the one from Ópusztaszer) was discovered during the excavations of an abandoned rural settlement and monastic site.51 The stratigraphy does not help in these cases but the historical events define the ante quem data of the finds. All five villages were more-or-less significant settlements before the Ottoman expansion in the mid-sixteenth century. Surviving the first period of military activity, all of them fell victim to the 1596 Ottoman campaign, the first phase of the Long Turkish War (or Fifteen Years War: 1591–1606).52

The cloth seals with the coat of arms of Nuremberg on one side and a Renaissance W letter on the other cannot be directly connected to any of the versions described in the regulations (Fig. 2c). However, the coat of arms seems identical with that on the second type. All of the twelve such finds were discovered either around Szolnok (three items) or in the southern part of the Great Hungarian Plain: Orosháza-Gerendás; Nagyszénás; Kunágota; Bácska–Bánság (József Géza Kiss’ Collection); unknown (two items in private collections) and the Castle of Bács (today Bač, Serbia). The chronology of this group can be also given according to the ante quem date of the sites: all the settlements around Orosháza (Gerendás, Nagyszénás, Kunágota) were destroyed at the end of the sixteenth century, which means that these seals must have been brought there earlier. The Renaissance details around the letter W and the coat of arms suggest that they date back to the sixteenth century. Since the known regulation does not give any hints concerning the interpretation of the fabrics marked with these seals, in my opinion, it should be identified with textiles not necessarily produced locally. It is very important that in the sixteenth century not only fabrics that were made in Nuremberg were given Nuremberg cloth seals, but also cloths that were imported from different places. Certainly, this product was also checked to be sure it met the required standards, and then it was sealed. After 1566, the local and the foreign cloths were marked differently.53 At the same time, the most plausible explanation for the simultaneous appearance of the coat of arms of Nuremberg and a W on the same seal is that such fabrics were also produced in Wöhrd. In this case, the W refers to the name of the suburb. The fact that the Hungarian accounts and registers drew a distinction between the cloth from Wöhrd and Nuremberg54 proves that this difference was somehow recognisable and that for some reason it was important to separate these fabrics. The easiest way to present the different origin was to mark it on the seals.

The fourth group of the known Nuremberg seals seems the best datable one. This is the type with a coat of arms on the obverse side and a letter N on the reverse side with a clear Renaissance character (Fig. 2d). According to the contemporary regulations, this version appeared in the late 1560s.55 Altogether seven such finds are known so far, and they are all from the Carpathian Basin. Except the already published stray find,56 three were discovered in castles: Bajcsa,57 Diósgyőr,58 and Feltót (today Tauţi, Romania). Two more were found around Orosháza (the deserted villages of Szentetornya and Battonya). The last one, from Sempte, cannot be identified indisputably as a cloth seal from Nuremberg, because apart from the letter N, it bears no other characteristic details of the group.59 As is known from the case of Switzerland, the letter N may also refer to Nördlingen.60 The situation with the dating is in some ways similar to that with the other groups of Nuremberg finds since at least four of the seven sites existed until the last decade of the sixteenth or the first of the seventeenth century.

Summarizing the Nuremberg cloth seal finds from Hungary, two details are very conspicuous. One is that there are no known published analogies from outside the territory of the medieval Kingdom of Hungary, except a single stray find of the third type from Bohemia.61 The other such detail is that the dating of all known Nuremberg cloth seals fits within the sixteenth century, with slight variance towards the late fifteenth and early seventeenth. Both of these observations are hard to explain. Perhaps the lack of foreign analogies is primarily the result of the different states of the research. The reason for the second one might be explained by the relatively late introduction of lead cloth seals in the textile production in Nuremberg. The interruption at the beginning of the seventeenth century must have been the consequence of the collapse of the cloth market in Hungary during and after the Long Turkish War.

Written Sources and Rich Archaeological Evidence (Ulm)

The case of Ulm is somewhat clearer than the previous ones. The connections between Hungary and the city are well documented from the fourteenth century when Ulm became an important importer of Hungarian wool. From as early as the mid-fifteenth century, medium quality Ulm cloth can be traced in the Carpathian Basin. In the Sybenlinder list it appears as VLMER.62 Even if its quality decreased during the Ottoman period, it was still presented in the sixteenth–seventeenth-century custom records.63 Beginning in the late Middle Ages, Ulm was producing mainly two types of textiles: woollen cloth and cotton fabrics. However, there is not yet any contemporary evidence for differences in the sealing practices used with these types of textiles. The written sources from Ulm itself show a gradually developing cloth industry up until the early seventeenth century, when it was interrupted by the Thirty Years’ War and never recovered.

As archaeological finds, there are three types of cloth seals from Ulm in the Carpathian Basin, and all of them include the coat of arms of the city: party per fess Sable and Argent.64

1) obverse: coat of arms of Ulm; reverse: imperial eagle (Fig. 3a)

2) obverse: coat of arms of Ulm; reverse: party per pale, demi-eagle at the pale (Fig. 3b)

3) obverse: coat of arms of Ulm; reverse: inscription ULM written in Humanist capital letters (Fig. 3c)

There is a fourth type known in Germany, on which the coat of arms on the obverse is supplemented with Renaissance letters V-L-M65 or a date (for example 1518), and the imperial eagle of the reverse is replaced with the Gothic minuscule type ULM. However, at the moment no examples of this version of the Ulm seals have been found in East Central Europe.

The largest collection of the Ulm seals in Hungary originates from the excavations of the old market square in the small western Hungarian town of Pápa. These finds represent the first two of the known types of such items. In Pápa the 14 seals were found in very different layers. Apart from three stray finds, two more came from modern features in secondary positions. The stratigraphy of the rest of the eight items can be dated from the late fifteenth to the early seventeenth centuries. The layers datable by coins indicate significant strata from the mid-sixteenth century. They are connected most of all to the layers associated with the rearranging of the market square when some new houses were built on the formerly paved surface. This process took place between 1526 and the late 1560s.66 According to the numismatic finds from the same layers, the dating can be narrowed to the 1550s or 1560s. Some other Ulm seals were found in a destruction or levelling layers datable not later than to the beginning of the seventeenth century. These layers indicate a huge catastrophe that struck the town around 1600. There were two such events in the history of Pápa in this period, which may have led to the destruction of all the buildings at the market square. The first was the siege of 1597 when the explosion of the gunpowder destroyed the castle and burnt most of the town to the ground.67 The next event, which was less likely to have been the cause, took place in 1600. The unpaid Walloon mercenaries revolted and turned to the Ottoman side. This led to another siege, which might have caused damage to the town as well. In any case, from the first decade of the seventeenth century, the market square of Pápa was again rearranged and new stone houses were constructed on the site of the earlier timber-framed ones.68 This construction activity was preceded by a significant levelling of the debris of the earlier structures. This is the levelling layer that contained the Ulm cloth seals. To conclude these observations, all the datable seals from Pápa come from the second half of the sixteenth century. The similar finds from Germany69 and Great Britain confirm this dating,70 indicating at the same time the earlier appearance of this type of Ulm seals.

Apart from the fourteen items found at Pápa, there are sixteen more cloth seals with the coat of arms of Ulm found in Hungary. All of them are metal-detector finds and thus cannot be dated properly. Eight seals were collected in the vicinities of Szolnok, and five additional seals were found in the plain region of Hungary: Révbérpuszta, Hajdúböszörmény, Nagyszénás, Orosháza-Fecskés, and Orosháza-Szentetornya, one more not far from Bény (today Bíňa, Slovakia). The last one is a stray find from a private collection. The finds from the plain region can be dated to before the end of the sixteenth century, because the deserted villages were destroyed in that time, during the so-called Long Turkish War (or Fifteen Years War: 1591–1606). Most of the stray finds (six seals) belong to the first group (arms and a whole eagle). Five more represent the second group with the demi-eagle. Only two items have the inscription VLM on the reverse, and three more were identified only on the basis of the fragments of the coat of arms. At the present stage of the research, there is not enough data to make any chronological distinction between the three types of seals from Ulm.

Scarce Written and Firm Archaeological Evidence (Augsburg, Dinkelsbühl, Memmingen, Rothenburg, and Waldsee)

The absence of the written sources concerning a particular production center does not necessarily mean the complete absence of its fabrics in the Kingdom of Hungary. This is the case of Augsburg. Cloth production in the city began in the thirteenth century. Its fabrics were very widespread all across the Europe. This fact is well documented not only by the contemporary written sources71 but also by a large number of the cloth seals with the coat of arms and symbols of Augsburg. The most popular product from the Augsburg textile industry was the fustian, which can be dated from the thirteenth century onward, and by the end of the Middle Ages was represented by fabrics of different quality and colours.72 According to Székely, there is no mention of Augsburg in the Hungarian sources. However, he checked primarily the sources on the north-western section of the border of the Hungarian Kingdom referring exclusively to the cloth fabrics (i.e. woollen production). He did not collect references for the linen or cotton textiles, which, however, was also regularly imported to Hungary. Correspondingly, the fustian – which was made of cotton – was omitted from his collection. At the same time, it is perfectly possible that the products from Augsburg were used as duties paid elsewhere, probably crossing the northern or western borders.

Walter Endrei in his study states that the Augsburg fustian was traded in Hungary. Thus, for example, in 1519 the Funck Trade Company sent some rolls of this textile to Kőszeg.73 The presence of the Augsburgian fustian in the Kingdom of Hungary can be confirmed so far on the basis of two cloth seals. One of them is known from the private collection of József Géza Kiss. It was found originally in the south-eastern part of Hungary (Fig. 4a). The other was discovered during a field survey in Kóny (north-west Hungary) (Fig. 4b). Both of them represent a very characteristic type of seal with a Gothic majuscule A referring to the name of the city on the obverse and the pine cone on the reverse. The last one appears in the coat of arms of the city from the Middle Ages.74

This type of cloth seal was in relatively widespread use all across Europe, and it is familiar from at least five countries: England,75 Germany,76 Poland,77 Denmark,78 and the Netherlands.79 Since the seals from Hungary are stray finds, their dating can be done according to similar finds from other sites. The form of the coat of arms and the size of the Hungarian finds are very common for most of the similar European seals. These analogies enable us to date the item from the private collection to the sixteenth century and the one from Kóny to the seventeenth century. However, the style of the cone of the seal from Kóny and the fact that the reverse side of the seal has specific iconography suggest an even later date for this item, sometime around the late seventeenth or even the eighteenth century.

There is a relatively large group of southern German cities known as exporters of linen or fustian fabrics to Hungary in the late Middle Ages. The written sources from the first half of the sixteenth century mention Dinkelsbühl, Memmingen, Rothenburg, and Waldsee.80 These places were relatively well known for their high and medium quality textile production in the late Middle Ages, up to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.81 There is no information concerning the quality of their fabrics sold in Hungary or the quantities that were sold. Nevertheless, the number of the identifiable cloth seals is relatively small. The most widespread type is from Memmingen, which can be identified by its coat of arms blazoned party per pale demi-eagle and cross gules.82 When readable, the reverse side in most of the cases shows a Gothic minuscule M referring to the name of the city. Altogether, six indisputable finds (i.e. finds that bear a recognisable coat of arms) are known from the Carpathian Basin: Pápa (Fig. 4c), Csejte (today Čachtice, Slovakia), Bény, Battonya-Kovácsháza, Szolnok, and one in a private collection (Fig. 4d). There are two more finds, which can be identified as originating in Memmingen on which only the Gothic M survived. Both finds were discovered at the market square of Pápa. Concerning the dating, only the finds from Pápa and Csejte have any stratigraphical data. In the first case, the seals with the letter M came from the layers datable to the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The one from Csejte, which was improperly identified by Ján Hunka as a cloth seal from Opole (Silesia, Poland), was accompanied by two coins, the younger of which was a quarting of King Sigismund from 1430–37.83 As they are almost identical with the stray finds, the dating seems to have been the same, roughly the period from the mid-fifteenth until the mid-sixteenth century.

All four cloth seals connected to Dinkelsbühl should be regarded as stray finds, including the two from the vicinity of Szolnok. The find locations of two others are completely unknown: one is in a private collection (Fig. 5a), the other, which is in the Hungarian National Museum (Fig. 5b), has already been published but as of unknown provenance.84 These items can be identified according to the three corns in the ear from the coat of arms of the city.85 The reverse side of the seals depicts an imperial eagle. In one case, only the reverse side survived with the eagle but its characteristic shape enables one to identify the seal firmly. There is no data so far for dating this group of seals more precisely than the fifteenth or sixteenth centuries, based mostly on historical references on the settlement structure of the Great Hungarian Plain, where these finds might have been discovered. I have not yet found any published seals from Dinkelsbühl outside the Carpathian Basin.

The last two cities, Rothenburg and Waldsee, have relatively simple and thus not unambiguously identifiable coats of arms. The coat of arms of Rothenburg is Argent a castle with two towers Gules;86 for Waldsee, the coat of arms is even simpler: Sable a fess Argent.87 The identification of the seals was possible due to the inscriptions on them: ROTEN/BVRG and WALDSEE. Two seals from Waldsee were found in the course of the excavations at Pápa, and another one comes from the vicinity of Szolnok (Fig. 5c). The latter is a stray find, but those from Pápa were discovered on the sixteenth–seventeenth-century surface layers of the market. The reverse side of the seals in all cases depicts the coat of arms of the city. There is only one known item firmly identifiable with Rothenburg, also found somewhere around Szolnok, but with no information that would make it possible to identify the location any more precisely (Fig. 5d). The dating can be deduced only from the type of inscription. The antique style of the fonts suggests dating not earlier than the first half of the sixteenth century.

Only Archaeological Evidence (Munich, Regensburg, Hof, Kulmbach, and Kaufbeuren)

The list of the cities the textile products of which were imported to the Kingdom of Hungary (as we know from the written sources) can be extended by five more places. This information comes from the archaeological finds. All five cities, namely, Munich, Regensburg, Hof an der Saale, Kulmbach, and Kaufbeuren, played more or less notable roles in the textile industry of southern Germany, but none of them appears in the known contemporary written documents as an exporter of textiles to Hungary. The most significant center for them was Munich,88 the cloth seal of which found at Castle Szitnya (today Sitno, Slovakia) was first identified by Ján Hunka.89 Since then, one more has been found in the vicinity of Szolnok and at least eight at the market square of Pápa (Fig. 6a–b). The basis for the identification of them is a monk’s head on the obverse, which at the same time refers to the name of the city and to its coat of arms.90 The reverse of the seals varies considerably, presenting at least five different imprints: a stylized image of a church (a triangle or rectangle with a cross on top), a Gothic minuscule letter M or flowers. Only the last type recurs twice. There is no convincing explanation for this phenomenon, but it might indicate that these marks were some kind of privy marks. The Munich seals found in Pápa can be dated predominantly to the sixteenth century, even if two items were discovered in later layers. It seems that no cloth from Munich arrived to Pápa after the occupation of the town by the Ottoman army in 1594 and its destruction during the siege in 1597.91 The seal found at Castle Szitnya has been dated to the fifteenth century.92 The last one from Szolnok is a stray find, but the characteristic late Renaissance style fonts from the fragmented inscription on the reverse ([…]HA) suggest a relatively late dating, maybe even to the seventeenth century.

Outside the territory of medieval Hungary, only two cloth seals that can be connected to Munich are known so far, both of them from the metal detectorists’ web forums. The monk’s head on the obverse is almost identical with that on the Hungarian finds, while the reverse shows privy mark-like symbols.93 Their dating is uncertain, as are their find locations.

The textile production of Regensburg was as important as that of Munich, but only four cloth seals that can be indisputably connected to the city have been found so far (both in and outside of Hungary). The unquestionable identification is possible only when the imprints on the seals included the name of the city, because the relatively widespread crossed keys in its coat of arms may refer, for example, to Leiden, Lubań or Weil der Stadt. The obverse of all four certain finds shows the head of St Cassian (the patron of the oldest parish church of Regensburg), with the circumscribed text RATISPONENSIS (Latin for of Regensburg). In some cases, the reverse side has also survived, presenting the coat of arms, i.e. the crossed keys. Three of the seals from Regensburg are stray finds: one was found in the vicinity of Győr (Fig. 6c), two others are still in a private collection with no indication of their find locations (Fig. 6d). The fourth item was found during rescue excavations carried out at the Buda castle. However, no archaeological dating is available for it either.94 The chronology of these finds is based only on stylistic features, namely the fonts of the inscription, suggesting most convincingly that they were made in the fifteenth century.

There are some more cloth seals with crossed keys but with no other identifying details. According to their quality and comparing them with the reliably identified seals from Leiden and Lubań, they may be connected to Regensburg. Such seals have been found during field surveys in the vicinity of Szécsény and in the deserted village of Orosháza-Pereg.

Hof an der Saale was a less significant textile production center95 but it is nonetheless relatively well represented in Hungary by its cloth seals. The obverse of these seals usually shows the coat of arms of the city: Gules two towers Argent in escutcheon between them Sable with Lion rampant Or.96 The reverse could have been executed in two ways: a large Renaissance H referring to the name of the city, or a ligature HOF. Altogether, five cloth seals can be identified as provenanced from Hof. Four of them have been found in Pápa, predominantly on the sixteenth-century surface of the market (Fig. 7a). The fifth similar item has already been published but only as an unidentified find datable to the seventeenth century97 (Fig. 7b). It was donated to the Hungarian National Museum as part of a larger collection and thus has no data concerning its origin. There are no other known seals from Hof elsewhere.

Another city not mentioned in the Hungarian written sources but represented in Hungary by its cloth seals is Kulmbach. The place was known primarily for its fustian production, which reached its peak in the late Middle Ages.98 The cloth seals, both of which were found at the Market Square of Pápa, can be identified by the inscription CVLM/BACH (Fig. 7c) or by the easily recognisable coat of arms: party per pale with Hohenzollern arms on the left and Azure Lion and Eagle Argent on the right.99 Seals from the Kulmbach-fabrics have been discovered in the layers dated by fifteenth and sixteenth-century coins. Most probably, the cloth was imported to Pápa in the time of the heyday of the city, i.e. in the middle of the sixteenth century.

The last city represented by only two items is Kaufbeuren. This relatively small place was not too significant but it produced reasonably good quality fustian.100 There are two seals that can be connected to Kaufbeuren, in both cases on the base of the coat of arms visible on them: Gules bend Or with two stars Or.101 The one discovered in Pápa has been published. It can be dated to the sixteenth century according to the stratigraphy of the excavation site102 (Fig. 7d). The second cloth seal was recently acquired within a larger collection from the vicinity of Szolnok. Unfortunately, there is no data available concerning the find location of the seal. According to the similar features of the coat of arms, it must be dated correspondingly to the sixteenth century. There is a single known analogy for cloth seals from Kaufbeuren in Switzerland.

Conclusion

An evaluation of the written and archaeological sources together produces a complex image of textile imports from the southern German region to the Kingdom of Hungary in the late Middle Ages and early post-medieval period (more precisely, the fifteenth–sixteenth centuries). The most important result of this analysis is the creation of a long list consisting of nineteen textile production centers, fabrics from which undoubtedly reached Hungary in the period in question. The analysis also illustrates the importance of interdisciplinary approaches, even in questions concerning economic history. The archaeological finds function as contemporary written documents, offering important details concerning geography and chronology and creating a special puzzle missing from the early approaches, which relied entirely on traditional written sources. By evaluating cloth seals, we not only learn the names of other medieval cities, which from now can be connected to Hungary, we also can identify the very last stop of the fabrics of the city-exporters, the very places of consumption, where the rolls of cloth, fustian, or linen were finally sold in retail (Fig. 8).

Summarizing the information gained from the different sources, the chronological framework can be limited to a bit less than two centuries, from the mid-fifteenth century until the first decades of the seventeenth century. The lack of the cloth seals from the seventeenth century still needs explanation. Despite continuing reports in the written sources about the trade in German fabrics, the gradually shrinking market of the Kingdom of Hungary, which was devastated by endless wars with the Ottoman Empire, resulted in a spectacular decrease in the cloth import by the end of the Long Turkish War. The transformation in the composition of the goods consumed must have begun even earlier. According to the archaeological evidence (primarily from Pápa), the decrease in the overall value of the textiles consumed must have begun in the second quarter of the sixteenth century. While there is strong evidence for the presence of higher quality products (from centers like Nuremberg, Memmingen, and Dinkelsbühl) in the first half and middle of the sixteenth century, products which were marked with large, nicely elaborated seals, by the end of the century the size and the quality of the seals declined noticeably. The drop in the import and sale of quality textiles can also be seen in the appearance of a large quantity of relatively cheap fabrics (Hof, Waldsee, Munich, etc.). Trends in the import of cloths from other regions (e.g. the Low Countries, Silesia, Bohemia, and Austria) confirm and reflect this tendency.

This work should be regarded as preliminary, as there are still many unidentified cloth seals that have been found in the Carpathian Basin. From a longer perspective, an interdisciplinary analysis of all available finds will give a more detailed overview of this topic.

 

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